


The Memories We Make

by AntiKryptonite



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Drama, F/M, Season 1, Storybrooke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-13 22:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 138,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntiKryptonite/pseuds/AntiKryptonite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world with magic, Rumplestiltskin couldn’t save Belle. In a world without magic, Mr. Gold frees her. But it seems that in both worlds, he is destined to lose her, one way or another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Out Of Patience

**Author's Note:**

> Characters and plot points, as well as Once Upon A Time, don't belong to me; no copyright infringement is intended. Thanks to everyone who reads -- hope you all enjoy, and I'd love to hear what you think of it!

\---

The teacup sat there oh so innocently, mocking him, taunting him, tempting him. Anything— _anyone_ —else that tried such tactics on him, that made the mistake of thinking Rumplestiltskin could be controlled or intimidated or guilted into anything, would have been obliterated, either with a high-pitched twitter and flourish of golden hands or a sharp word and the glitter of cold menace in draconian eyes.

But not this teacup. Not her teacup.

 _My teacup_ , he reminded himself sternly. She might have laid her mark on it, taken her pound of porcelain flesh, but he had long paid his price for it, paid for it over years without number missing her and regretting what could never be and wishing things could have gone differently.

His teacup, but it had once been hers, and the annoying habit of calling it hers had crept into his thoughts, and he had just recently paid a price higher than any other he had ever paid— _save one_ ; the one he paid for with every beat of his heart, every breath that whispered of another precious name _—_ paid such a high price to get it back, so the prize was safe from his destruction. Safe from obliteration and mocking laughs and cold anger.

Besides, he wasn’t Rumplestiltskin anymore, had left that name behind when he’d sold away a curse and given instructions on how to cast it, had bargained the once all-important name away to get back the very same teacup now taunting him with its presence where he’d set it.

It looked lonely and frail and altogether too vulnerable there in his cupboard, but it had looked worse on his bedside table, and he certainly couldn’t carry it around with him. In fact, no place seemed safe enough for it, not after learning just how easily it could be stolen away from him. If he _were_ still Rumplestiltskin, he could have magicked it safe and never feared that it’d be accidentally swept to unforgiving ground or carelessly dropped to harsh floors or snatched up by weak, foolish men intent on petty revenge.

But he wasn’t Rumplestiltskin anymore— _a fact that, after twenty-eight years, I really shouldn’t have to keep reminding myself of_ —he was Mr. Gold. And much as Mr. Gold was universally feared and reviled and avoided, he was also just a man with no magical options open to him. A man who could so easily stumble and knock into the cup, who wouldn’t be able to move swiftly enough to catch it before it shattered, who would never be able to wrap himself nearly well enough in twisted words and dark deals and centuries’ old plans to protect himself from the loss.

No, much as he hated to admit it, he was vulnerable now, which meant the teacup was vulnerable, and no matter where he placed the cursed thing, it just never seemed safe enough.

And it was laughing at him.

With a growl, Gold turned away from it. _The cupboard is closed and locked, and the teacup is placed beside a whole set of others that look almost exactly like it—there is no safer place for it_. Much as the admission should have comforted him, though, it only shamed him. A cupboard, the safest place he could put his most prized possession? Maybe he should be glad she was gone, because as he was now, he certainly couldn’t protect her.

Not that he’d been able to before, either.

With a disdainful sneer that would have immediately made anyone in town recoil and step out of his way, Gold turned away from the teacup, not for the first time, not for the last time, and tried to direct his attention back to the papers and blueprints spread out over his dining room table.

Gold was his name now, Mr. Gold to all the residents of Storybrooke— _all save one, thanks to the thievery of that misguided excuse for a father and florist_ —and his power was less magical, more monetary, equally frustrating in how slowly it bestowed on him what he most desired.

Patience had been his byword for more years than he could count, surely for centuries, from the moment he’d made his snarling vow to a retreating fairy, through the long dealing and bargaining years, in that cell that young pregnant princess thought she’d tricked him into, and oh so maddeningly during the interminable twenty-eight years when time itself had stood still while his mind scrabbled uselessly at its unmoving prison. But now, now when time was moving again and the loophole savior he’d arranged for was here—and now that Regina knew he knew his real name, the name etched with power—now it was so very, very hard to hold onto patience. In fact, impatience practically burned like ethereal fire through his veins and settled as a deep, dull ache in his bones. He could all but _feel_ magic at his fingertips again, could all but see Bae standing in front of him, could all but taste the end of his self-inflicted quest.

And it was too soon, far too soon to move, no matter how close it felt.

 _Just a while more_ , he coaxed himself, and set weary, burning eyes to the papers scattered across his table. Just a while more to play these legal games so steeped in _this_ world’s rules, to manipulate from afar, to keep being just plain Mr. Gold without any hints of Rumplestiltskin, to keep all the _pleases_ he wanted to lash out at Regina safely locked behind his lips.

Patience. His byword for so long, now a special kind of torture.

And the teacup’s laughter in the background wasn’t helping anything.

The blueprints he’d managed to acquire without Regina’s knowledge were blurring in front of him, the official documents detailing the list of employees and their jobs and salaries had stopped making sense an hour before, but still Gold gave no thought to abandoning his task for sleep. The night hours were too long for someone who possessed unbroken memories of a world so different from this one, and sleep was too dubious a prospect for someone who had so much cause for nightmares. Far better to look for just one more piece of information he could someday use against Regina when _please_ and once-feared names and the beginnings of reawakening magic weren’t enough.

“What do you have hidden in there, dearie?” Gold whispered, and if his voice was a bit high-pitched and a bit of Rumplestiltskin bled through, well, it was past three in the morning, the time of night when dreams of a life long gone were more acceptable than delusions of a life not lived.

Regina had something hidden away in the hospital, Gold was sure of it. She bought a rose once a month, not for her father’s grave, not for any of the charities she thought made her look more benevolent, but for someone, something, at the hospital. She never visited it on the same day twice, never made it a habitual routine, except that once every month, she made a visit to the hospital, and as deeply as Gold had sunk his claws into informants and others beholden to him, he could not figure out what or who she saw there.

He had thought the blueprints might give him a hint since she obviously snuck away, out of sight of those who reported back to him, staying for only moments before once more leaving the hospital _sans_ rose. So far, however, the only thing the blueprints had shown him was that there were an inordinate number of rooms for as few patients as the hospital treated, there was an unusually large basement space for the boiler, and there were a few windows unaccounted for. As for the employee records, they were a mass of redundancy, proof that Storybrooke was too small a town to comfortably hold all the residents of an entire world, endless lists of doctors and nurses and orderlies and janitors, so many that Gold had to smirk at the mental image of the hospital exploding outward, raining uprooted-townsfolk-turned-amnesiac-victims over Storybrooke’s provincial streets.

As hopeless as the task looked, though, Gold knew there had to be something there, and he wouldn’t stop looking for it. No matter how deliciously freeing it had felt to finally, _finally_ be able to speak his true name, he didn’t like that he’d been forced into giving that valuable piece of knowledge away to Regina. _Her_ teacup was worth it, but still, he needed to find a way to restore the footing between them.

“How much room do boilers really need, anyway?” he muttered with yet another close perusal of the complicated blueprints. “And why all the extra windows?”

There was something under there; he could feel it just as surely as he’d once been able to feel the desperation of souls around him. The dear little queen had stashed something away, a secret she didn’t want anyone to know about. Well, the more she wanted something hidden, the more potential advantage it held, and that was something neither Rumplestiltskin nor Gold could pass up, not when the savior was proving so woefully slow in figuring out her part in this whole curse.

Gold straightened from the table, letting the blueprints flutter back to the wooden surface. Wincing, he had to grab hold of the table’s edge; too many hours spent bent and huddled over these papers. Carefully, with memories of a dilapidated hut and the stench of wool and the sound of a child’s voice chattering in his ear dancing through his sleep-deprived mind, Gold sat and rubbed out the cramp in his bad leg. If he’d stopped to think of it when writing the curse, he’d have known he’d have to deal with this pain yet again, but his mind had been focused on other things and so he’d made no loophole, no contingency for it and now had to live with it. He wondered, vaguely, how many other things he had missed in his single-mindedness. _Not that it matters. Not anymore. We’ve come too far to go back now, even if we could_.

He had learned everything he would from these documents. In the morning, he’d pay a visit to a certain Glass and spend a threat he’d been saving for a rainy day. He was tired of hiding, tired of waiting, tired of being Mr. Gold. He wanted to slip into Rumplestiltskin, even if only for a moment, an hour, a day, and even diluted by the absence of magic, making deals in this world was still one of the only things that could remind him of who he’d once been. He’d been Rumplestiltskin too long not to miss him, after all.

Very carefully, Gold did not look back at her teacup, did not so carelessly reveal how much it meant to him, just left it there, locked up, hidden among others so much like it and yet so removed, all alone. Very carefully, he did not think for the thousand-thousandth time just how much he had in common with that marked and desolate piece of tableware.

Very carefully, he pretended he didn’t hear its mocking laughter ringing in his ears. Pretended that laughter didn’t sound exactly like broken sobs. Pretended he was deaf as well as crippled, imp as well as human, strong as well as chipped.

 _Patience and pretense_ , he reminded himself, and went to snatch a few restless hours of sleep.

 ---

Sidney Glass was none too happy to see him, but then, no one was ever _happy_ to see him. The former genie’s eyes were red-rimmed, his skin sallow, more lines crimping around his mouth; the supposed break between himself and the mayor was wearing on him. He’d used a wish to bind himself to Regina’s side, after all, and even in another world, wishes and curses and magic weren’t so easily escaped.

“Mr. Glass,” Gold said with the small, close-mouthed smile that took so little effort to make, even on barely three hours of sleep, and yet still, apparently—going off the reactions of everyone who saw it on him—was enough to frighten whoever was the recipient of it. Because he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her teacup—hadn’t been able to stop worrying about it, no matter where he left it, since he’d found out just how easily it could be taken from him—because he could still hear its taunting chuckles, he couldn’t entirely brush aside the memory of a brave princess who had _not_ flinched away from his smile, who had smiled back at him as if there were no _reason_ to be afraid.

 _But that was far away, long ago, and never again_ , he reminded himself, and wondered if, now that time had started moving again, he was actually forgetting things. As many times as he had to remind himself of basic details and facts, one would think he was growing absentminded. And he had worked too long to falter now, so close to his goal.

“Mr. Gold,” Sidney said, his suave veneer not nearly enough to hide the nervous stutter to his words. No one could say Gold’s name without fear, or at the least, wariness. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, to tell the truth, I really think the question should be what you can do for me.” Behind the cover of his distancing sunglasses, Gold glanced around at the street behind them. He’d cornered Sidney Glass coming out of his house, and it was early enough there was no one else around. Still, his glance allowed him to examine the genie-turned-magic-mirror out of the corner of his eye without letting Glass know he was being watched. It allowed him to catch the beginnings of shrewdness make its clumsy way into the genie’s eyes. Really, it was too bad he’d tied himself to Her Majesty; except for that flaw, he might actually have amounted to something. Gold hated wasted potential.

“I-I really don’t know what you mean,” Glass tried, narrowing his eyes. “Unless you have a story for me? I am still selling freelance—”

“Save it for the dense creatures who actually believe your drivel,” Gold snapped, too edgy and irritable for beating around the bush, no matter what useful birds might come flying out into the sky to be knocked down with this single stone. “The new sheriff and her coterie of followers may believe whatever sob story you spun for them, but I know there’s more than a job as editor of the town newspaper tying you to Regina. Of course, I’m sure that my passing on that information to Miss Swan would bring you some small amount of trouble.” He didn’t wait for the genie’s revealing blanch, barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes at the man’s inability to lie, then remembered that he wore his sunglasses and so indulged in the roll of his eyes. _Not so much potential there to be wasted, after all._

“What do you want?” Sidney asked, almost petulantly. “What deal will you make?”

Gold felt a tingle of suspicion trickle up his spine, but after an instant’s study was satisfied that the poor lovesick fool was only talking about Mr. Gold’s penchant for deal-making, not Rumplestiltskin’s. “I want to know what Regina’s hiding in the basement of the hospital,” he said bluntly, far more bluntly than he should have, but that impatience was like acid eating him away from the inside out. “And unless you want Sheriff Swan to find out just how securely you still reside in the mayor’s pocket, I’d suggest you start talking.”

Sidney stared at him, incredulous, mouth hanging slightly open. “The hospital? What’s so important about the hospital?”

Even if he hadn’t been wearing his sunglasses, Gold still would have rolled his eyes. “I believe that’s what I’m asking _you_ ,” he said sarcastically. “For someone having once been so highly placed in the news business, you’re not really up on current events, are you?”

The genie drew himself up, pretending to himself that he was still a man, still worthy of respect even though he’d thrown all of that away decades before. “I know everything that happens in this town. But why should I tell you? Sheriff Swan trusts me more than she does you—she’ll believe me when I deny whatever accusations you bring against me.”

“Really?” Gold scoffed. He readjusted his weight on his cane, regretting the hours spent bent over blueprints. “You care to test that, then?”

It took only a moment’s stare-down before the genie dropped his eyes and shifted uneasily. “Fine!” he snapped grudgingly. “Regina visits the hospital because she—”

“I should mention,” Gold interrupted, his voice a drawl, his tone casual, “that if you lie to me, I’ll be letting our beloved mayor know who gave me this information. Voluntarily, even, if I recall how this conversation goes.”

Sidney hesitated, re-evaluating the shorter man before him. Rumplestiltskin, the lowly weaver, had hated his shorter height, hated how inferior it made him feel, how much easier it made it for everyone else to look down on him; Rumplestiltskin, the powerful Dark One, had relished the height difference, loved making others stoop to speak to him, amused himself with the look in their eyes as they tried to pretend that their few inches of height on him was enough to equal the ground between them. Mr. Gold had never much noticed his height, never much cared one way or the other, except now, when he cornered souls who didn’t realize just how desperate they were and they had to look at him and register with surprise that he was smaller than it seemed he should be.

“Look, I don’t know what’s behind the locked door,” Sidney finally admitted. “I only know that Regina takes a rose because she says it’s a reminder of where she found her.”

“Her?” Gold repeated, his brows rising slightly. _So there is a person under there_ , he thought with dim surprise. He had rather thought it was a magical remnant the Queen had brought to this world, maybe the equivalent of his— _her—_ chipped teacup.

“I don’t know who she is, only that she says it’s the final bargaining chip she needs if…” Sidney cut himself off, looked almost frightened as he glanced around the still-empty street.

“If…?” Gold prompted, leaning forward, intimidating without looming, a useful trick.

“If…” Sidney clamped his mouth shut, then closed his eyes and sighed. “If worse comes to worst between her and you.”

For the first time in quite a while, Gold found himself at a loss. _A bargaining chip? For me?_ He knew it wasn’t the dagger; even if Sidney hadn’t admitted it was a person, Gold would have _known_ if anyone held his dagger. The magic was different here in this cursed world, but enough remained inside him that he would have immediately registered that his dagger had been taken. And nobody living knew about Bae. So…so _who_ could be used against him? He’d intentionally kept himself separated from all, from everyone. Fear was useful for many things, one of those being keeping a firm dividing wall between himself and anyone who could be used against him. He’d learned his lesson with—with—

The world shifted, staggered, shrunk until there was nothing but her teacup, sitting in that locked cupboard, the feel and weight of it so poignant and tangible that he could have sworn it was in his hand. For an instant, Gold was so dizzy he knew it was only his cane, propped up against solid ground, that kept him upright.

Because there was only one person who could be used to control him. One person who could bring him up short as effectively as his well-hidden dagger. A person he’d once given a rose to. A person Her Majesty had used against him, sending her home so innocently with promises of curses and True Love’s Kiss, bringing him tales of scourges and flaying and leaps off of towers—tales that still haunted his nights and had him tossing and turning until he stayed up for hours studying blueprints.

Blueprints of a hidden dungeon. With narrow-windowed cells. Containing a bargaining chip that could be used against him.

Hope and guilt and horror welled up within him in equal parts. So much so that he swallowed bile, the bright sunlight of hope dulled by the shadows of guilt and the curtains of horror, and all of it mixed up with the thought he could not stop winding through his head: _What did Regina do to her_?

Belle.

Even thinking the name made him lightheaded. How long since he had spoken it aloud, felt its beautiful taste splash through his mouth like flowing rivers of lava, twisting in his throat like crushed glass made of spun fairy dust?

Belle.

But it was impossible, because she was dead, because he’d killed her, shut her up, cast her out, tainted her, abandoned her, and she was _dead_. She hadn’t come back to him, and he’d never found her, never seen her crystalline eyes shining at him or heard her soft voice, not in all the traveling he’d done, not in all the side-trails and detours he’d taken in the unvoiced, unadmitted hope that he _would_ find her, not in any of his visions of the tangled, dark, hopeless future.

He’d found himself in love, felt his magic dwindle away, and oh, how he’d feared. Feared never seeing Bae again, feared losing Belle to some horror—hadn’t even dreamed then of just how nightmarish words like _scourges_ and _flaying_ could be, not then—feared himself having to sacrifice her for the dark curse he’d spent so long preparing, feared breaking his vow to his precious son. And he’d sent her away, and now she was _dead_ , and he was just clinging to straws, hoping they’d turn to gold in this magic-less world after long decades when _nothing_ had turned to gold save Rumplestiltskin himself, and hoping against hope that the monster could not so easily slay goodness.

Sidney was staring at him, Gold realized absently, and so he pasted on the effortless, close-mouthed, terrifying smile. “And that’s all you know?” And so skilled was he at this, so second-nature were all these deals that brought him closer to Bae and turned him more and more into a man Bae would turn away from, that his voice came out just as cold and harsh and intimidating as he needed it to, even without his conscious direction.

“Yes. Well, she has a code on the keypad, but I don’t—”

“Don’t know what it is,” Gold finished for him irritably, and he was starting to remember who he was and where he was and the world had started to right itself—because it _was_ impossible, and it was just a baseless, useless hope—and the dull, roaring pain in his leg was enough to ground him for the moment. Later, later, he could curl up in the darkness of his shop, surrounded by tokens of a lost world, and protect this precious, flickering light that had so suddenly sprung back into being within him. “Yes, yes, I think we’ve already established your basic ignorance. Still, Glass, even for someone with as little knowledge of current events as you hold, you do know, I should think, just how badly things would go for you should the mayor find out about this conversation. In fact, I daresay she’d be so upset you might just find your pretense of estrangement becoming reality. And that’s if you’re lucky.”

Heavy-handed, really, such a blunt threat, not at all like his usual self, but maybe the world hadn’t _completely_ righted itself, and it was all he could do not to be completely and wholly inundated with the memories of a woman who had deserved all the good and wonderful and bright things in life and yet had been given only servitude with a beast as a master and a tragedy as her end.

 _Unless_ …

Gold smiled mirthlessly at Sidney again—amazing how useful that little smile could be—made sure the genie was properly cowed beneath his fedora and hopeless desire to please Her Majesty, and then gave a nod and a look that had the man scurrying away as fast as he could go while still keeping the shreds that remained of his dignity.

 _Belle_.

For so long he’d kept her name away, unable to think of it, that one syllable the most potent magic he still possessed, able to conjure up hope and light and warmth and redemption, delicate magic with the price of the resulting guilt and sadness and bleak, awful grief, so harsh and choking, because there _was_ a chance, a hope with Bae, but no magic in any world could cure death.

 _Regina told me she was dead_ , he thought despondently, staring ahead at nothing. _She died._

_Didn't she?_

Maybe he was a foolish, weak old man who couldn’t help but grasp at straws, who couldn’t help but go after the one chance he had of keeping what he loved. Maybe it was weakness, frailty, idiocy, or just pure lunacy brought on by centuries of guilt and grief compounded by decades more of added grief and guilt and regret and twenty-eight years of living one life in his mind and another in his body. No matter what it was, though, he _would_ grasp at it. He _would_ try to find it. He would, because the last time he had grasped at straws, he’d listened to a beggar’s tale, and the last time he’d gone after the one chance he had of keeping what he loved, he’d become the Dark One and ended the Ogre War and saved thousands of children from war…and saved his own son from a brutal death on a bloody battlefield. He’d lost him afterward, yes—and maybe this hope he’d found now would turn out to be just as short-lived; maybe it’d dwindle away and be doused when he found what really was underneath the hospital—but Bae _had_ lived. He had survived.

And maybe Belle lived too.

It was the first time the thought, the idea, had ever come to him. The first time he’d allowed himself to even think it. Because as awful—world-shattering, heartbreaking, soul-rending—as it had been to lose her before, it had been what he’d known would happen the instant he’d recognized what he felt for her, the moment he’d realized that monsters didn’t get happy endings and beasts didn’t end up with princesses and villains didn’t receive blessings. But now…now, if he let himself think that she was alive….then how much worse would it be to lose her again?

 _Still a coward, magic or no magic_ , he thought bitterly. And yet…and yet that was Rumplestiltskin. And he wasn’t Rumplestiltskin anymore. He was Mr. Gold, and Mr. Gold didn’t have to be a coward. He could be brave, bold, daring, everything that Belle needed him to be. He could be stronger, better—after all, he was a human now, an ordinary man, and yet he still possessed the power to protect her. Maybe he was still a monster, but it was a more human bestiality now, a monstrousness that was perhaps easier to accept.

He was still a desperate soul, but maybe…maybe he could be a brave one, too. For her, he could be.

When Mr. Gold started walking down the street, it was with a purpose, his steps quick, his eyes fixed on the Sheriff’s office, his mind awhirl with plans and power and potential. It would be easy to get the savior to agree to search the hospital when he showed her the questionable blueprints and spoke of Regina’s clandestine visits. A bit harder but still doable to acquire a search warrant from the judge, what with those pesky debts the man owed him and their approaching due dates. Hardest of all to stand before Regina should he find that it really was Belle— _his_ Belle, and images of blue dresses and shy laughter and books left open and the scent of roses on his shirt assailed him like gale-force winds that bent him beneath their pressure—hardest to stand before the Queen and not kill her with his bare hands, to do nothing but utter that all-important _please_ , the full power of which he’d been saving for when he needed it most.

And Belle….Belle counted for needing it most.

Belle counted for _everything_.

\---


	2. Out Of Concern

\---

Emma was still wondering exactly how Gold had managed to talk her into this. There was no way in the world she needed to be risking her precarious good will with Regina and her stolen moments with Henry on this escapade Mr. Gold had been so all insistent on dragging her along on. It hadn’t been that long ago he’d gone after a thief all on his own and Emma had found him beating the guy senseless with his cane, so surely common sense alone should have made her hesitate before following him. Or at the least she should have made it a requirement that he consider this her favor discharged; she hated having that hanging over her head.

Her misgivings lasted all the way up until Mr. Gold somehow managed to crack the code on a door labeled _Exit_. A pretty high-security appliance for a door in a hospital. Odd enough that he did it without pausing, as if the numbers changed to whatever he demanded they be as soon as he put hand to keypad—and she might not entirely put it past him; he was scary enough to intimidate even a door—odder still that the dark stairwell was obviously not leading to an exit since it was going belowground. Oddest of all that there was a nurse guarding the shadowed corridors beyond, a single red rose sitting incongruously on the desk in front of her.

Mr. Gold didn’t even stop to look at the nurse—Emma was almost sure he didn’t even see her—just kept on walking. Of course the nurse didn’t like that one bit, and her halting cries echoed strangely in the basement that was way more sinister than it had been on the blueprints Gold had shown her when presenting his case as to why she needed a warrant to search the hospital.

Emma grabbed hold of the nurse and tried to explain things to her, but the nurse wasn’t listening, and when she took a swing at Emma, the sheriff had excuse to cuff her hands behind her back. Being official had its perks.

She let out a curse when, looking up, she realized that Gold hadn’t— _naturally_ —waited for her. The tap of his cane on the concrete floors, the determined tread of his uneven steps, the rigidity of his expression, it all seemed very foreboding. Ominous even, and Emma didn’t think that was just because she’d been listening to a lot of Henry’s babbled, and unnecessary, warnings not to trust Mr. Gold.

_Odd, though, that out of everyone in town, Henry can’t find a place for Gold—well-known and cranky and surely memorable in any incarnation—in his book of fairytales._

Exasperatedly, Emma shook off the extraneous thought, damping the now-constant presence of Henry in her thoughts, and shook a finger at the nurse. “If you move from this chair, I won’t only have you up on charges of assaulting an officer of the law, I’ll charge you with obstructing justice, got it? Since you didn’t want to see it the first time, I’ll let you examine the search warrant—and what all it entails—when I get back.”

She would have liked to have pressed her for more information—if Regina was behind this as Gold claimed, she knew the nurse wouldn’t be in her custody for long—but Gold was gone already, and whatever reason he had for coming down here so single-mindedly, and with such an uncharacteristic lack of fore-planning, Emma wasn’t sure she wanted him to accomplish it. In her mind, he was better than Regina only because he pretended to be on her side, and maybe more dangerous because he actually knew the meaning of the word subtlety.

“Gold!” she yelled after him, but her voice rang back at her, making her jump, so she gave up and followed the distant sound of his cane clicking against the floor. She kept a hand on her gun, remembering the unnatural strength that had burned beneath her hand when she’d grabbed hold of him to stop him from beating French into a pulp. For all his frail appearance, Gold had a nasty reservoir of strength hidden beneath those designer suits.

She came around the curve of the corridor in time to see Gold casually use his cane to trip a strange-looking man holding a mop and standing in front of a series of locked doors. _Locked doors? In a hospital basement? Behind a locked door claiming to be an exit? Yeah, not exactly normal here_.

Not that anything was in this crazy town.

With a sigh, Emma kept a hand on her gun and called out, “Don’t move,” to the orderly—or janitor, or whatever he was—now on the floor. Not that he looked to be that motivated at anything he did, but Gold certainly wasn’t paying any attention to him. In fact, the pawnbroker was already stopping before a door that was completely unmarked, not even casting a glance to the other doors, as if he already knew what was behind each one. The other doors, Emma noticed, did have names beside them, all but the one door Gold was intent on—the door he had actually stopped for when nothing else had been able to make him stop moving since Emma had found herself agreeing to get the search warrant.

_Though come to think of it, when_ _exactly did I decide to let him come_ with _me on this search_?

“Who has the keys to these doors?” Emma demanded of the silent janitor. She wouldn’t put it past Gold to just walk right over the door and expect it to fall down in front of—

Emma gaped. The door was opening.

Gold had put his hand to it, Emma had looked down at the janitor, and now the lock was undone and the door was yawning open. Inside, dim darkness lit only by fogged and grated windows was split by the shaft of light breaking around Gold’s suddenly still form and casting his shadow across the room.

The janitor beneath her tensed, and Emma put a restraining hand on his shoulder, but her throat had suddenly seized up on her and she couldn’t say a word, could only stare at what happened next.

A girl lay on a crude pallet attached to the cell— _no other word for what that room is_ —a girl who slowly looked up, looked toward the door, pushed herself up with one thin arm. Dark hair spilled over her shoulders like liquid and eyes so clear and blue they seemed to catch and refract the light were locked on what had to only be a sharp silhouette to her—Mr. Gold.

“Belle.” It was a harsh, choking sound from Gold that Emma only gradually translated into the single-syllable name. She would have given a lot to be able to see his expression, but his back was to her, his hands wrapped around the handle of the cane he leaned so heavily on. The emotion in his voice— _emotion! Gold!_ —was plenty, though. Plenty confusing. She had never heard so much pure emotion coming from Gold, wafting off him like the stench of that wool he’d treated during his plot to make her sheriff.

Emma almost moved when Gold did, but the janitor made as if to move too, so she had to stay where she was, holding onto him and watching, frozen in shock.

Gold took a slow step forward, and another, even the tap of his cane sounding different, less confident, more tentative. The girl’s expression was perfectly illuminated by the flickering lights in the hallway, a heartrending blend of hope and wonder and joy, all almost overshadowed by disbelief and just a hint of uncertainty.

“Belle,” Gold said again, a whisper that Emma heard only because of the unnatural acoustics of this hidden dungeon— _a_ dungeon _! Oh yeah, Henry’s definitely going to have a field day with this one_.

Gold came to a halt just beside the girl and looked down at her, dark eyes cast in shadow, his hair hiding whatever Emma might have been able to glean from his profile.

The girl still hadn’t looked away from him, hadn’t even blinked, as if afraid that if she did, he would disappear and the door would be locked again. Emma felt a slow rage beginning to boil up within her at the stark injustice of this all, but before she could spew forth the furious questions building inside her, she was once again struck speechless, this time by the way the girl lifted a hand to trace pale fingers along the curve of Gold’s jaw. And Mr. Gold, the man who would probably step aside if anyone tried to help him right himself from an uncharacteristic stumble, the man who didn’t even like to shake hands, the man who avoided all human contact—Gold just stood there and watched the girl unblinkingly, and if Emma hadn’t known better, she would have thought he trembled beneath her feather-light touch.

The girl whispered something then, something Emma didn’t quite hear, though it sounded like a short phrase that ended with ‘skin’ or perhaps ‘thin.’ And then the girl smiled—more the hint of a smile than a real thing, but still breathtaking judging from the quick catch of air in Gold’s throat—and she danced her fingers over his cheeks. “You look different,” she said, loud enough for Emma to hear, though it was only a low, hoarse murmur, the words accented. “What happened to your leg?”

And suddenly Emma knew—knew even without her previous suspicions—that Gold knew this girl, that this girl knew Gold, that there _was_ a ‘she’ Gold had been beating French up over.

“Belle,” Gold said again, as if he were incapable of thought outside that name, and Emma remembered, not the strength of his muscles, but the very real pain she’d seen in him when he castigated Moe French for whatever crime he thought the florist had committed. Looking around now at the dark basement, locked doors, and the girl’s ragged condition, Emma thought she might actually agree with Gold that a crime had been done here.

And then Emma was surprised once again— _and since when am I_ not _surprised by the things happening in this town?_ —when Gold’s knees buckled and he sank to the very edge of the cot and breathed out, “You’re alive.”

Again, the girl said that phrase or word Emma couldn’t quite catch and then there were tears in her large eyes that seemed to swallow up her face. “You came for me,” she said, her voice suddenly clear and perfectly understandable, and she blinked, sending those tears free to trickle down her cheeks, and she slipped her arms around Gold’s neck and clung to him as if she didn’t want to ever let go.

Emma thought that would surely be the most surprising thing to happen all day—and there had been quite a few surprises for a Friday already, even in Storybrooke—but was proven wrong an instant later when Gold let his cane clatter to the floor and wrapped his arms around the girl, burying his face in her hair. He was a small man, short and seemingly frail if not for his aura of power, but the girl was smaller, and he enfolded her easily, curling in around her as she shrank into him, her shoulders shaking.

“Let’s get out of here,” Emma said, finally succeeding in getting words to emerge past her tight throat. She couldn’t help but throw a glance over her shoulder. _Dead end in front of me, narrow hallways behind, and I can’t believe Regina isn’t here already to tell me why a secret underground dungeon isn’t any of my business. Come to think of it,_ she thought acerbically, _she’ll probably be this girl’s emergency contact too._

The other locked doors glared accusingly at Emma, but the janitor obviously didn’t have keys on him, and Gold didn’t seem to be in any hurry to open them as he had the girl’s door. In fact, he didn’t seem to have heard Emma at all, still wrapped around the girl. A stirring of uneasiness slithered through the pit of Emma’s stomach, and she sure hoped that hug was fatherly.

“Come on, Gold!” she snapped. “Let’s get her out of here.”

The girl withdrew from Gold’s embrace, then, just enough to look up into his face. Gold loosened his grip, but he didn’t break the girl’s suddenly frightened stare. “You’ll stay with me,” she half-stated, half-asked.

“Yes,” Gold said, the word almost a sob—causing Emma’s eyes to pop nearly out of her face. He raised one hand to smooth down the girl’s hair, the single most tender gesture probably anyone had ever seen the ruthless pawnbroker make. “Yes. I’ll protect you.”

With a shake of her head, Emma tore her eyes from the startling scene and looked down to the man lying stomach-down on the ground. _I should have recruited some backup_ , she thought wryly. How was she supposed to handle getting the girl upstairs to safety—hopefully without letting Regina see her, just in case—restraining the janitor, and collecting the nurse? It all would have been a lot simpler if Gold hadn’t rushed her and she’d thought to bring some backup with her. But bitter as the thought was, she knew Gold had been right that telling anyone would just bring word of this that much more quickly to the mayor.

“Come on, Gold,” she said again.

Gold let one arm drop away from the girl, and he started to help her stand with the other, but the girl—Belle—stopped him. “I’m sorry,” she murmured brokenly, her eyes flicking from Gold’s shirt to his face and back again. “They already gave me the pills today. It makes it hard to stand or move. Hard to think.”

It was probably a very good thing that Gold had dropped his cane and Moe French—or anyone else connected to this travesty—wasn’t around, judging by the sudden dangerous tension in the rigid set of Gold’s shoulders and back. Emma didn’t have to see his expression this time to know just how cold and implacable it was. An instant later, though, he was tucking one of Belle’s curls behind her ear and soothing her. “It’s all right. I won’t let them hurt you.”

“I know.” And Belle smiled at him! At Mr. Gold! Smiled _fondly_! Emma Swan had never fainted before in her life, but she figured this day might just go down on the calendar as the day. “You always keep your promises, and it’s forever.”

“Forever,” Gold said, and Emma didn’t blame him in the least for the tightness in his voice. The man was probably even more surprised than the sheriff.

“Into the cell,” Emma commanded the janitor, tugging on his shirt and shoving him ahead of her. He shambled forward, face expressionless, seemingly ignorant of just how much trouble he and everyone else associated with this dungeon was in. “We’re going to get the girl to safety, then I’ll come back and take care of you. Got it?”

Probably not the right protocol— _okay,_ definitely _not the right protocol_ —but she didn’t have many choices here. Emma was much more concerned with Belle and whoever else was locked up than all the protocols and rules she hadn’t yet gotten around to studying up on.

Emma stepped forward, prepared to help Gold sling the girl between them, but she came up short when Gold braced himself, slipped an arm under the girl’s legs and the other behind her shoulders, and then stood. “Mr. Gold,” she began, but his eyes skipped over her without seeing her, and the girl was tucked apparently safely in his arms, her forehead leaning against his shoulder, and with only a tight mouth and grim eyes to give away the Herculean effort it required, Gold carried the girl out of the cell.

Closing her mouth and shooting another warning glance at the janitor, Emma bent and scooped up the pawnbroker’s forgotten cane, then closed the door on the janitor and followed Gold through the dark, close hallways.

It took her a moment to process the echoes caused by their contrasting footsteps and realize that Gold was murmuring to Belle, a constant stream of words that rose and fell in pitch in a way she’d never have thought the man had in him. It was hard to pinpoint individual words, strain though she might, but she caught enough to realize he was relaying how far they had to go to get her out of here, how she’d be able to see the sky, that spring was coming and he knew how much she loved spring.

_What_? Emma frowned, her hand tightening over the smooth enameled finish of Gold’s cane. Only an idiot would miss the fact that the old pawnbroker and the young victim had known each other before—considering that Belle had been surprised by Gold’s limp, it had probably been a while ago, which made Gold’s tenderness for a young woman all that much more worrisome—but Emma was having a hard time wrapping her mind around the sight and thought of Gold as compassionate and tender and open enough to even care whether anyone he knew liked spring better than any other season.

Despite herself, she couldn’t help but wonder who Henry would think Belle was. _Probably Beauty,_ Emma found herself thinking, not nearly as sarcastically as she’d have thought. _After all, even without her name, it sure looks as if she’s got the Beast wrapped around her little finger._ Only, Emma knew Mr. Gold, or at least was learning about him, and he wasn’t wrapped around _anyone’s_ finger, didn’t answer to anyone; he was always in control, and he valued people only so long as they held something of value to him. So…what did Belle have or know that made Gold so careful of her?

The nurse was sitting where Emma had left her, her jaw clenched, hands still cuffed behind her back. With a sharp nod, Emma made her stand, then pushed her ahead of her, keeping a hand closed around one of her arms. She probably should have read her some rights, but then, as tight a hold as Regina had on this town, Emma doubted she’d be able to hold her past an interrogation room.

Gold’s step checked, briefly, when he caught sight of the stairs ahead of him. After that slight hesitation, though, he just tightened his grip over Belle and lifted his foot to the first step.

“Let me help,” Emma demanded, images of the pawnbroker and girl tumbling down the stairs flashing through her mind. She was perturbed by the ensuing sight of Belle’s hand tightening over a fold of Gold’s suit jacket and Gold’s own hand splaying farther over Belle’s back.

“Too narrow for all of us,” he said shortly. And he brought his right foot to join his left on the step, then stepped up, again with his left.

It was a slow, painful journey up the steps, and Gold felt each step carefully before trusting Belle’s weight to it. Emma hovered behind, her hands up as if she could right him should he tip backward, though more likely his leg would give out under him and send them sprawling downward, right on top of her and the grimly silent nurse. The stairwell seemed much longer now than it had when descending it, and Emma found herself feeling almost claustrophobic, even more so than when she’d descended into that mineshaft to rescue Henry and Archie.

Belle’s grip on Gold never loosened, and she kept her head leaned against his shoulder, though by the lights gleaming off her pale, heavy-lidded eyes, Emma could tell that she had tilted her chin up so she could stare at Gold’s face. Her expression was too nebulous for Emma to interpret it, but her death-grip on his jacket seemed explanatory enough. For whatever reason, it sure looked as if Belle thought Gold, and Gold alone, could protect her.

_Of course_ , Emma knew, _that could just be because Gold’s the one she saw open her cell door._ She well knew how easy it was for ill-used victims to mistake gratitude for something deeper, and Gold certainly wouldn’t be the type to not use that against a young beautiful girl. Even more than the rage still simmering inside, the sheriff felt the mere sight of Belle tap that well of protectiveness inside her; no one else should have to go through the sort of things Emma herself had gone through, certainly not alone.

Belle murmured something, and something very like a chuckle escaped Gold, either that or it was a breath let out through clenched teeth. As well it might be. Even in the shadowed dimness, it was obvious the pawnbroker was tiring rapidly.

Finally they reached the door, and Emma let out a huge sigh of relief when it opened at a nudge from Gold’s strategically placed shoulder. Light spilled down the stairwell and noise issued back into existence with such suddenness that Emma almost flinched. Gold staggered up and out into the hospital’s brightly gleaming sterility and then stood there panting, his body half-turned to situate his own self between Belle and the others in the hospital.

“Hey, someone help us over here!” Emma called out, discarding secrecy. Those who had seen the strange quartet emerge into the well-used hallways broke free of their gaping surprise and others who hadn’t yet noticed them turned at her yell. Emma tightened her hand over the nurse’s arm to fix her at her side, but kept a sharp eye on Gold, not sure what he planned on doing with the girl.

“It might be best to take her somewhere Regina can’t find her,” Gold said quietly as a doctor shouted for a gurney to be brought.

Emma glared at him. “We will. But not until after she’s been looked at by a doctor. We need to at least find out what they doped her up with.”

Gold hesitated, then inclined his head. “Very well.”

Belle had buried her face in Gold’s jacket as soon as the lights and noise had broken over them, but now she looked up slightly, eyes wide and washed out under the harsh fluorescent bulbs, skin too pale and stretched too tightly over sharp bones, hair ragged and tangled…yet she was still beautiful. And so obviously, horribly fragile as she stared pleadingly at Gold.

“She…she won’t take me back again?”

“No,” Gold promised without a single mention of payment for his protection. “Never again.”

Emma filed away the ‘she’ Belle had mentioned for later thought, and called over the hospital security guard. She handed the nurse over to him with stern instructions to take her straight to the police station, where she was to be held for questioning, and all the while, she watched Gold like a hawk, ready to leap between him and the girl the instant he made any threatening moves or statements. She didn’t trust his newfound altruism and didn’t expect it to last any longer than it took him to get to the point about whatever he thought he needed from Belle.

But Gold settled Belle on the gurney they brought him, kept hold of her hand and walked with her to an exam room, disentangled their fingers when Emma insisted the pawnbroker leave for Belle’s examination, glared threateningly at the doctor, disentangled his hand from Belle’s yet again, and stepped outside. There he stood very still, mutely accepting the cane Emma handed him, his dark, intent gaze fixed on the door to Belle’s room, deaf to all of Emma’s questions and warnings. And when the doctor came out of the room, Gold stepped inside, murmured reassuringly to Belle—who was wide-eyed and panicking until her eyes fell on him—then stood in the doorway where she could see him and he could see her, and listened to the doctor talk about the possibility of a build-up of addictive drugs in her system and the potential effects of withdrawal Belle might suffer without the daily dosage.

“Are you even listening?” Emma demanded of Gold, impatient and frustrated that he’d given not a single sign he was listening to the doctor’s spiel. _Not that I want him to_ , she reminded herself. _He led me to her, but she’s my responsibility now, not his._

“Of course,” Gold said shortly, his voice more strained than Emma had ever heard it, tighter even than when he’d spoken of calling in favors while sitting in her jail-cell. “She’s been terribly hurt, awfully mistreated, and has a dreadfully long recovery time ahead of her. Now if that is all…?” And he walked away from Emma and the doctor and rejoined Belle, who had not yet taken her eyes off him, only watched him, standing there in the doorway. As soon as he stood at her bedside, she reached out a hand for his, and he wasted no time in letting go of his cane with his left hand to grasp hold of hers.

“What happened to your leg?” Emma heard Belle ask him again, but he only shook his head and smoothed his thumb over her hand and looked at her with an expression that wasn’t fatherly _at all_.

Emma didn’t like where this was going. Ashley and Alexandria were proof enough of Gold’s ruthlessness, her own election as sheriff enough incentive to know just how adept he was at manipulation, and the cold gleam in his eyes—as if he could not be touched by anyone’s pain or love, could not be touched at all or touch anyone else in turn—too unsettling to trust him with a young, troubled, abused, and beautiful girl. Emma didn’t trust Gold as far as she could throw Leroy, and she sure wasn’t about to let him anywhere near Belle without her supervision.

Unfortunately, Belle didn’t seem inclined to let her rescuer out of her sight or let anyone else touch her. She had only allowed the examination because Gold asked it of her, and now that he was back, she was done with the doctors. Emma couldn’t say she blamed her, but she was taken aback by how attached the girl was to Gold already. _Just how exactly did they know each other before? And how close were they? If Belle doesn’t remember him without a limp, she had to have been impossibly young when Gold saw her last!_

“No,” Belle said, clearly and resonantly, when the doctor moved forward to give her a light sedation. With her near-panic attacks and the drugs flooding her system, he’d recommended letting her sleep off the majority of the drug’s immediate disorienting effects. Belle tugged her arm free of the doctor’s grip and turned once more toward Gold. “Please.”

With a quick flicked glance to Emma, Gold took the girl’s hand and leaned forward. “Shh, Belle. Everything’s different here. What they give you will help. You’ll sleep and then wake up better, like magic.”

“And…” Belle searched his face for something; Emma couldn’t tell whether she found it or not. “And you’ll be here when I wake up?”

Emma opened her mouth, but Gold’s answer was immediate. “Yes. I’ll be here.”

And so Belle let the doctor inject the sedatives, and she watched Gold, her hand held in his, until her eyes fluttered closed. Leaning heavily on his cane, Gold bent forward. He whispered something to Belle, and Emma inwardly cursed the hum of activity outside the room that covered his words.

“She should sleep pretty restfully,” the doctor said, and nodded at Emma’s thanks.

“Gold,” Emma said, her voice cutting into the quiet descending around them as the doctor left. “What is going on here? How did you find out about that place? _What_ was that place? Who is that girl? And why does she look at you like—”

“All your questions will be answered,” Gold said, almost dismissively. He sank down into a chair, carefully, a wince of pain spasming across his face as he settled his cane between his feet and leaned on it. Emma felt bad for him until she reminded herself that he could manipulate with the best of them. “But not now. Now I need to make arrangements to take her away from here. She can stay with me; I can protect her from Regina.”

“Stay with _you_?” Emma gaped at him. She _hated_ feeling like she was two steps behind, but Gold and Regina were both too good at their twisted games and maneuverings and it was growing to be a familiar feeling. “Are you crazy? She’s not going with you—she’s not going _anywhere_ until I find out who she is and what happened to leave her trapped—”

“Her name is Belle French,” Gold interrupted, a flash of impatience burning like real gold through his shadowed eyes. “She worked for me, cleaned and organized my shop, brought dinner when we worked late, that sort of thing. Regina wanted to use her against me and her father signed her over, claimed she was insane. Of course, they told me she was dead. Killed herself because she was unhappy with her job. With her life.”

As if the day hadn’t been strange enough already, Emma couldn’t detect a lie in Gold’s clipped words. It was always hard to detect falsehood with him as she could with others—he was too crazily good at slipping in the tiniest of falsehoods to poison all the truths he presented just so—but this time, there wasn’t even a twinge of uncertainty. He was telling the truth; he meant what he said.

“Sheriff Swan, I respect the fact that you want to protect her.” Gold finally looked up, finally met her gaze, and Emma had to forcibly prevent herself from taking a step away from the intensity locked there. “But she’s not safe in this hospital. How many people here have already called the mayor, already told her what’s happening? How many of them could slip her something dangerous without us being able to tell? She’ll only be safe when she’s outside of Regina’s reach, and if you believe nothing else I say, believe me when I tell you that there is nowhere more outside of the mayor’s reach than my home. I’ll hire a live-in nurse to help through the aftereffects of what they did to her, and you can stay with me as well, to begin with, to settle your fears about how I might…mistreat…her.”

“You—” Whatever Emma was going to say—and even she had no idea what that was—was lost when Belle began to murmur uneasily in her sleep, her head turning one way and then another.

“Belle,” Gold whispered, softly, quietly, a breath of air shaped around her name that wasn’t meant for any ears but the girl whose hand he reached out to cradle between his. As if by magic, Belle calmed, quieted, stilled, her hand limp and hidden beneath Gold’s grasp. _Just like he’s going to try to do to her_. Emma knew Gold and others like him; they didn’t know how to love, only knew how to suffocate, to control, to possess, but Emma wouldn’t let Gold do that to this girl who’d already been through hell.

And yet…and yet there was something infinitely fragile, something delicate and frail, in Gold’s expression, in the way he leaned toward Belle, in the slow sweeping of his thumb over her knuckles, in the quiet murmur of his reassurances, in the way he’d almost killed himself to carry her out of that dungeon. _Maybe_ , Emma found herself thinking, _maybe…maybe he really does care for her._

“Fine,” she heard herself saying. “When the sedative wears off, we’ll ask her what she wants to do. If she wants to go with you”—and much as it pained her to admit, Emma wouldn’t bet anything on her _not_ wanting to go with her rescuer—“she can stay with you. But I’m staying too and if at any time, I find evidence you’re hurting her, she’s gone and I’ll pull up a restraining order on you so fast you’ll think she pulled a disappearing trick.”

“An odd request to make of the one person who led you to her so that she could be rescued,” Gold said, his voice a sibilant hiss, and all fragility was banished before the menace lurking in the edges of his accented voice. “But I agree to your terms, Sheriff Swan, save one more condition—I will stay away from Belle only if she herself asks me to.”

Eyebrows raised, Emma opened her mouth to deny the condition, but Gold was already standing, leaning more heavily on his cane than she’d ever seen him do before, one hand yet holding onto Belle’s. “Well,” he said briskly. “I should go set up the paperwork and make the proper… _polite_ arrangements. I’ll ready a few guestrooms. I know you’re eager to finish up your grand rescue of the other prisoners belowground and your interrogation of your own prisoners, but don’t leave Belle until I return. She shouldn’t be alone.”

And he was gone, limping away more quickly than it seemed he should be able to, his free hand clenched into a fist.

“Hey, I didn’t agree to anything!” Emma yelled after him, but he gave no sign of hearing her and Emma herself couldn’t even believe her own protest. She _had_ agreed to something, the same way she always seemed to when around him, pushed and manipulated and prodded and tricked into doing exactly what he wanted.

_Well, I may have let him go for now, but if he thinks I’m going to stand aside and let him turn this girl into a puppet, he’s got a very painful correction coming to him._

Belle shifted again, once more stirring uneasily in her sleep. Narrowing her eyes, Emma took a careful step nearer her. With a glance over her shoulder, feeling almost guilty for some unaccountable reason, she reached out and cradled Belle’s hand in the same way Gold had done. Only, when he’d done it, the girl had instantly quieted; now, however, she yanked her hand away, let out a tiny whimper. Emma took hold of her hand again, but it didn’t calm Belle.

In fact, Belle didn’t calm until Mr. Gold came striding back through the hallways, something sharp and hard and almost triumphant glittering in cold eyes and stiffening angular joints, to take his place once more at the girl’s side. The instant he took her hand and whispered her name, she calmed and returned to the restful sleep the doctor had promised.

Another mystery on top of a hundred others presented to her just this day alone.

Emma couldn’t wait to hear Henry’s interpretation of the events of the day, couldn’t wait to see his so-intelligent eyes shining with vibrancy and imagination, his mouth curled up in that irrepressible smile, his hands moving in gestures to complement his words.

Of course, thinking of Henry made her think of the other mystery presented today—a mystery besides Gold and the rescued girl.

Where was Regina?

_And why hasn’t she shown up to protect what she sees as hers?_

Emma wished she knew the answer. She had the feeling that not knowing was making her vulnerable. And she needed every advantage over the mayor she could find.

Henry depended on it.

\---


	3. Out Of Dreams

\---

There was a world of difference in his eyes. She had seen it immediately. Staring at him as he entered her cell, devouring him with her eyes because she’d been so long starved of him, she’d immediately, instinctively noted the differences and the similarities in his physical appearance—dark brown eyes taking the place of large, compelling pupils of a shade she had never been able to adequately define; glittering skin of gray and gold and silvery-green given way to the pale, smooth, lined flesh of an ordinary man; a limp and a cane and a quiet air instead of that crackling aura of power that had once surrounded him as surely as if he carried lightning in his wake. So many differences, and yet so much familiar in the shape of his jaw beneath her questing, wondering fingers, in the feel of his warm and caring hand on her waist, carrying her from her cell into freedom as assuredly as he had once escorted her from her father’s castle into his.

He looked different, moved different, even sounded different, and yet it was unmistakably him—Rumplestiltskin.

Rumplestiltskin, and yet that world of difference in his eyes.

He had once been wrapped in power, in danger-tinged mischief, carried with him an otherworldly charisma that drew eyes and provoked whispers and inspired legends, and he had thrived under the stares of others, dancing and preening and gesturing with hands that could command instant attention. Now he was quiet and steady, standing in place instead of moving in that half-prowl, half-dance she had once watched so assiduously, his expression more stoic, more inclined to hide and conceal with blankness rather than with sarcastic comments and sharp-teethed smiles.

He was Rumplestiltskin, and yet he was a man. An ordinary man that was nonetheless—could never be anything _other_ than—extraordinary to her.

She had dreamed of him coming, dreamed that he would find her and rescue her, take her back to the Dark Castle, welcome her—sometimes just as caretaker, other times, in better, more wistful dreams, he took her in his arms, invited her inside those close, tight walls he kept around himself. Perhaps he kissed her, then, she could never remember when she woke, and when she dreamed while waking, she could never quite imagine him entering the cramped confines of her cell to retrieve her. He seemed too big, too powerful, too _everything_ to fit in the tiny place she had been condemned to.

Even now, she thought she might be dreaming. The fair-haired woman who had accompanied Rumplestiltskin was a mystery, but the pills always made her see strange things, which could also explain the sharp, metallic artifacts and objects all around her, the strange fabric of the blankets draped over her slight frame. Everything was white and silver and gleaming—everything except Rumplestiltskin’s skin, which no longer gleamed at all. The people around her were purposeful and efficient and perfunctorily courteous, but she recognized none of them, and they did not ask her name, and they were dressed like the ones who had forced her to take the disorienting pills every day for however long she’d been locked away.

They had pricked her arm, and like the stories of that princess from the neighboring kingdom, she had slid into sleep, a heavy, dark sleep that wrapped her in unconsciousness as if it were a thick, suffocating blanket, and no matter how she tried, she could not escape it, could not throw it off her to take a full breath. She did not know how long she drowned beneath the enchanted sleep Rumplestiltskin had promised would make her feel better, but when she finally woke, she panicked.

White room, brighter than her cell but still so similar, an unfamiliar nurse standing over her in much the same manner her white-clad jailor had often done. It was useless to scream—she had learned that long ago—useless to do anything but meekly comply to whatever they wished to do to her, usually another round of the pills or an enforced shower or a change of clothing. She had learned how to pretend obedience, become so good at imitating docility that she feared it had stopped being a pretense and become reality, and yet…and yet Rumplestiltskin had come for her, and he had taken her in his arms just as she had dreamed, and she had felt his hand in hers while she slept, and she could be docile no longer.

So she did scream and she fought and she knocked the nurse aside, and it wasn’t a dream because Rumplestiltskin had appeared, still in his strange new form, but vengeful and protective, chasing away the nurse, closing the door—not to lock her in but to lock others _out_ , and that was such an enormous change from what she was used to that she felt tears prick beneath her lashes, the moisture stinging her dry eyes as she looked up into his face.

And that’s when she saw, again, the wealth of change, all stored up there, the strength of his personality shining from his piercing dark eyes—human eyes, but with a force to them she had never seen in anyone else.

_Human eyes. Human skin. Human form._

_He’s human_.

And she began to weep. Selfish of her, she knew, and probably childish, but she couldn’t help it; all her strength was crumbling away without any foundation to support it, her bravery evaporating like dust watered by her tears. She had waited so long and dreamed so much and prayed so hard, and all of it was for naught.

_At least he’s free_ , she told herself, and hoped it was enough to assuage the terrible, overwhelming ache opening up like a void inside her chest. _And at least he still came to rescue me_.

“Belle,” he said, and only at the sound of his voice saying her name aloud did she remember that it _was_ her name. She had been trapped in silence and darkness and isolation so long that she had forgotten what it felt like to have a name, to be identified so completely and individually by another. “Belle,” he said again, and there was a thread of something almost like helplessness in his voice—though that was impossible because Rumplestiltskin was never helpless—and he sat on the edge of her bed and pulled a rich, deep red handkerchief from his breast pocket.

Belle looked away from him, then, tried to bottle up the tears, use them to fill up the void within her, but they kept coming, especially when he reached out and dabbed at her tears with his handkerchief. She wanted to knock his hand aside, wanted to tell him to leave because it was too painful to look at him, wanted to turn back time and undo her mistakes that had made him send her away, wanted to…wanted to kiss him. But she couldn’t do that, never again, and she couldn’t bring herself to send him away, wasn’t strong enough to ask him to leave, had grown accustomed to pain in the past years and so kept looking at him.

When he reached out a long finger to slide down the curve of her cheek, Belle’s breath caught in her throat, her tears shocked to a halt. Belatedly, she drew back a slight inch, eyes locked on him.

He offered her the faintest hint of a smile, hardly there at all, so different from the exaggerated smirks he had once gifted her with after a particularly amusing quip that made her either laugh or gasp or both. His hand dropped into his lap, but he proffered the handkerchief with his other. Belle considered it for a moment; she wanted it but wasn’t sure it was her right to take it. And yet he was offering it, and her face was still wet, and she didn’t have anything of his— _not even his heart, apparently_ —and so she finally, tentatively took it.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, glad the words emerged despite the scratchiness in her throat. It had been a long time since she’d spoken.

“No matter,” he replied, and he was watching her carefully, looking for something, she thought. _But what_? Regardless, she smiled faintly at the memory of the last time they’d made this exchange. The curtains falling away to reveal billowing sunlight, the fear as she fell too, the strength in his arms as he caught her, the catch to her heartbeat at the heady scent of him, the fluttering weightlessness in the pit of her stomach, the waking longing and bewildered awe so evident in his enthralling eyes.

“Here.” Rumplestiltskin was offering her a cup he’d picked up from the table beside her bed, and Belle regretfully shook off the memory. In the cell, she had relived her memories almost constantly to escape her surroundings; sometimes, she’d thought on her childhood and her years with her papa, but most of the time, she’d savored the few months she’d spent with the feared Dark One. A few times, she had tried to imagine the memories differently, to play what-if games with them, but it never lasted and eventually she gave up. She treasured the real memories too much to tamper with them.

But he was here now and she wasn’t in the cell anymore and, different or not, the memories paled next to the actual presence of Rumplestiltskin—warm and close and still with a hint of that bottled lightning sparking around him, and so obviously concerned for her—so she took the flimsy cup with another weak smile, and drank. The ice water was jarring, but it soothed her throat and staved off more tears.

“Belle—” Rumplestiltskin began just as she gathered the remnants of her courage and asked, “Where are we?”

They smiled at each other, and they still weren’t real smiles, were still too wondering and tentative, but at least it was a moment of connection, and Belle treasured it. “Where are we?” she asked again after a moment.

Rumplestiltskin let out a small sigh and looked down at his hands, resting on the gold handle of his cane. “We’re in another world, Belle, one without magic. A curse brought us here. Everyone in this town is from our world, but none of them remember our world or who they used to be.”

“A curse,” Belle repeated numbly. She supposed she should be feeling something at this information, should be reeling at the loss of her entire world, should be worried about her papa and her friends—but she wasn’t. She was blank and hollow and emptied of everything. The last bit of emotion and strength she’d had left to her had been expended when Rumplestiltskin carried her from her cell or just seconds ago when she’d mourned what could have been. She was _still_ mourning, really, but she couldn’t think of that, not with him so close, so intent on her…so utterly forbidden.

“The Queen,” Rumplestiltskin said shortly, and as different as he might look, the note of unveiled menace, of caged fury, in his voice was very familiar. Belle looked away, not wanting to relive the memory, sharp and jagged, of a stool kicked back and a covering torn from a mirror and harsh words snarled at someone she couldn’t see.

As if he knew what she was thinking, Rumplestiltskin’s hand darted forward, brushed her hand, hovered in the air between them. “She’s the mayor here. She invoked the curse because she wanted to take away all happy endings.”

“She came to see me,” Belle said while staring fixedly ahead. But as soon as she said it, she turned her gaze to meet his eyes. So long she’d been wanting to see him, yearning just for the chance to see his intriguing, mysterious face again, and she was afraid that if she looked away too long, he’d vanish, nothing but another dream turned delusion through sheer force of _wanting_. _It wouldn’t be the first time_ , she admitted silently.

“Did she.” It wasn’t a question, and the threat heavy in his tone, burning like deadly embers in his eyes, would have frightened Belle except that she knew it was on her behalf. Knowing that, she was instead reassured by the power Rumplestiltskin contained, by the power implicit in his mere presence. Suddenly, instantly, she felt safe, and with this soothing of her ever-present, dull fear of the Queen, she abruptly realized she was exhausted.

“Rumplestiltskin,” Belle began, but the quick half-shake of his head stalled the rest of her words.

With a glance over his shoulder, he leaned in closer to her, lowered his voice. “My name here is Mr. Gold; I own a shop of curiosities and treasures—a pawnshop. Your name is Belle French, and you used to work for me before you were locked up—cleaning the shop, dusting, that sort of thing. You should be familiar with the specifics.” His grin was small, but it was breathtakingly reminiscent of the sardonic grins that had peppered their time together.

Belle looked at him in confusion, startled by the rapid way the words spilled from him. “But I—”

“Excuse me?”

Rumplestiltskin didn’t look away at the greeting, kept his eyes fixed on her, but Belle looked to the opening door and saw the fair-haired woman who’d helped rescue her standing on the threshold. Belle darted a quick glance to Rumplestiltskin. “Emma Swan,” he whispered so softly Belle almost couldn’t hear him. “She’s the law-keeper here—the sheriff.”

“Belle, right?” the woman—Emma—asked. She stepped into the room, and her eyes were fixed on Belle as determinedly as Rumplestiltskin’s were. Belle suddenly felt like a dried and withered flower pressed too hard between opposing pages of a book. “Is it all right if I talk to you for a few minutes?”

Belle swallowed, gripped Rumplestiltskin’s handkerchief tighter in her hand, and managed a graceful, dignified nod. _How long since I’ve felt like a princess, remembered that I_ am _one?_ But some things, some habits—some people—were easier to reclaim than others. “Very well,” she said, sitting up straighter.

Watching her, Rumplestiltskin gave her a small, approving smile, and Belle fought the slight flush to her cheeks.

“I’m Emma Swan, the sheriff here,” Emma said, an odd blend of professionalism and kindness in her voice. “I just need to ask you a couple questions, if that’s okay.”

“All right.” Belle gave her another graceful nod, knew it probably looked ridiculous combined with the ragged gown she was wearing and the mussed and tangled state of her hair. Suddenly, she felt embarrassed that Rumplestiltskin was seeing her like this, but it was far too late to worry about it now.

“Alone, Mr. Gold,” Emma said, and that odd blend was gone, buried beneath thinly veiled hostility. Despite everything that had happened between them, despite his now-human appearance, Belle found herself bristling.

“I want him here,” she declared clearly, and without thinking, she reached out her free hand and caught his, held onto it tightly. He squeezed her hand once, then gently retracted it, put it once more on the top of his cane. Belle couldn’t help but look away from Emma to stare at him, hurt despite herself, and of course now he decided to turn and look at the sheriff.

Emma raised her eyebrows. “As a lawyer?”

“I hardly think Miss French needs to be worrying about an attorney just yet,” Rumplestiltskin said smoothly. “Though when the time comes, I’d be happy to offer my services.”

“I’ll bet,” Emma said, and Belle blinked at the bite to her tone. Emma noticed and made an effort to gentle her manner, but Belle was used to seeing through the facades people erected. “I’m sorry. If you want him to stay, I guess he can.”

“Thank you,” she said graciously. She folded her hands on her lap, hiding the handkerchief beneath her curled fingers, hoping she looked relaxed, that Emma couldn’t see just how tightly she was clenching her hands. She dared not look to the side at Rumplestiltskin; if she did, she knew she would start crying again, and right now she needed to hold onto some of his strength, needed to pretend that she could still be brave.

“Your name is Belle French?” Emma asked. “How long have you been locked up? _Why_ were you locked up?”

“I don’t know,” Belle said simply. She had never been a good liar, and she hoped she could remember everything Rumplestiltskin had told her before Emma came in.

“Do you know who put you down there?”

Belle bit her lip, took a moment to think. More than anything, she wanted to look at Rumplestiltskin, wanted to ask him what she was supposed to say, but Emma was already suspicious of Rumplestiltskin— _Mr. Gold_ —for whatever reason, and Belle didn’t want to do anything to make it worse.

“I’m not sure,” she finally said, quietly, eyes falling to her lap.

“Didn’t you get any information from the nurse you were holding?” Rumplestiltskin asked abruptly, taking the attention off Belle. He had always been adept at sleight-of-hand, at calling attention to one flourishing hand while performing the trick with the other.

“Not yet,” Emma said with a grimace. “But I will. And Regina still hasn’t showed up, so I’m having a hard time believing she’s behind this like you claim. She’s always the first one to come running to the scene if she’s involved in any way.”

“Perhaps something more important came up,” Rumplestiltskin suggested, and Belle knew the dark note in his voice well enough to guess that he had something to do with why the Queen wasn’t present.

Emma looked like she wanted to say something to Rumplestiltskin’s comment, but she visibly restrained herself and turned back to Belle. “Miss French, I’m very sorry about what was done to you. I promise you, I’m going to do everything I can to find out why you were held. The hospital, so far, hasn’t been able to produce any paperwork for you, or an explanation for why there’s what amounts to a dungeon beneath their feet. If you think of anything, anything at all, please tell me.”

“Thank you,” Belle said after a moment, not sure what the correct response was.

“I mean it,” Emma said earnestly, stepping to the side of the bed opposite Rumplestiltskin. She stared beseechingly at Belle, and Belle did her best to hide her nervousness. She was not used to people, not used to having to know the proper responses, not used to this whole world. “What was done to you was wrong, no matter what paperwork is produced. It should never have happened, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure it never happens again. You’re safe now.”

“I know.” She couldn’t help it; she looked at Rumplestiltskin, met his eyes, and was surprised at the blatant emotion she found there. Already, the moments when he’d entered her cell and carried her out of the dungeon were growing blurry and vague in her mind, so much of it encapsulated in the overwhelming emotions that had stormed their way through her. She thought she’d seen tears shimmering in dark, human eyes, thought she remembered him trembling beneath her fingers as he had once trembled beneath her lips, thought she remembered a fervent vow that had all but bled from his mouth. She _thought_ she remembered those things, but after his calm composure in the last several minutes and the way he wouldn’t hold her hand and— _the biggest clue of all_ —his human appearance, she had begun to doubt what she thought she remembered, begun to think dreams had leaked through to taint what had really happened.

But now…now he was looking at her, and there was fear and wonder and determination, all of it there, all of it directed to her. It took her aback, made her suddenly self-conscious and simultaneously relieved and confused.

“Miss French,” Emma interrupted, glancing between the two with narrowed eyes, “Mr. Gold thinks it isn’t safe for you to stay in the hospital. You’re welcome to stay here if you’d like, though; I can make sure no one harms you.”

Rumplestiltskin tore his eyes from Belle and stood, took a few, halting steps away from the bed. Belle stared at the line of his back and the half-profile of his face. He was facing somewhere in between Belle and Emma, but his glare was directed fully at the sheriff.

“However,” Emma went on, unperturbed, and Belle was once again reminded that this was not her world because no one— _no one_ —would have dared ignore Rumplestiltskin that way, “there are a few other options, too. Your father would surely take you in. Or you could stay with me, if you’d like. It would be safer that way, and we’d still be close to the hospital for whatever care you need during your recovery.”

“Sheriff Swan,” Rumplestiltskin interjected, his tone so pointedly polite Belle could practically see the razor-sharp edges. “Do you really think having her stay with you and a schoolteacher is the safest place for her? Particularly when both of you are gone most of the day?”

“It’s got to be better than the other option!” Emma retorted. “I told you, I didn’t agree to anything, and if you think I’m going to let you—”

“What other option?” Belle interrupted. Her throat was dry again, but both Emma and Rumplestiltskin heard her. Rumplestiltskin grasped his cane tighter and kept a steady gaze on Emma, who looked at Belle.

“Mr. Gold has offered to let you stay at his house,” she said grudgingly. “It’s farther from the hospital, but it’s—”

“Yes.” Belle felt dizzy and almost swayed with relief. This whole world was foreign to her, alien and strange and incomprehensible. She had thought the strangeness of her cell and white-clad jailers all due to the Queen’s methods of imprisonment, but now, with every new thing she saw, she was further convinced of what Rumplestiltskin had told her—this was not her world. She felt adrift, lost, alone in this strange place, and the only anchor she had, the only thing to confer stability and familiarity, was Rumplestiltskin.

How long had it been since she had last been in the Dark Castle? She didn’t know, couldn’t even begin to come up with a number, but it felt like an eternity, and since even before she had first set foot outside it, she had been longing to return to it. She would have taken her kiss back, would have taken her declaration of love back, would have taken it all back if she could have only stayed there with him, happy and whole and free no matter that she had been, technically, a prisoner—a _voluntary_ prisoner.

But he had sent her away and she had gone and her life had been taken out of her hands, her fate yanked away from her, and she had thought she would never again get a chance to return to Rumplestiltskin. And now…now out of nowhere, he was offering her the chance to return. A different world and probably not the Dark Castle she had cleaned and grown to call home, but it was _his_ home. And that was enough for her.

Numb and confused and battered by the events and emotions coming too quickly for her to handle them, Belle snatched at this chance for something approaching familiarity. This chance to be near _him_.

“I want to go with him,” she said aloud, pronouncing each word as precisely as she could, and then closed her eyes, secure in the knowledge that Rumplestiltskin would protect her.

Emma’s words about live-in nurses and extra rooms and rules and statements all blurred together and floated above her, tangled and unintelligible. She stayed silent, let them wash over her, drift away as if they were nothing but currents too deep and murky for her to reach. Rumplestiltskin was silent, too, but she didn’t open her eyes, didn’t look at him, didn’t reach for him again. She knew he wasn’t for her, not anymore, but she was weak now, and bravery was so elusive, and desperation and loneliness had chipped away at her integrity, so she couldn’t be certain she wouldn’t succumb to temptation and throw herself at him anyway.

The fair-haired woman, this sheriff so intent on justice and so ambivalent toward Rumplestiltskin— _master, rescuer, savior_ —stepped closer once again, though, and Belle couldn’t help but shrink away from her, eyes flying open to assess this new danger. She didn’t know this Emma Swan, didn’t know if she could be trusted, didn’t know whether she herself was a prisoner or a princess today, and so she watched her with wariness, and she resisted the urge to draw the thin, strange blanket up higher over her shoulders.

“Miss French, I know you think Mr. Gold can keep you safe—he says you knew each other before?”

“Yes,” Belle said, glad that this, at least, she knew the answer to, glad she didn’t have to lie, not really. “I worked for him. At his shop. I was his caretaker.”

“His _what_?” There was an angry, suspicious gleam in Emma’s icy eyes, her hostility no longer veiled as her head swung toward Rumplestiltskin. “Caretaker?” She spat the word as if it were something far too filthy to touch with her mouth, as if it conferred something wrong and unnatural.

Belle flinched away from it, this woman’s open disdain, from the insinuations she had heard from those she’d encountered before her capture, from the Queen’s assumptions. She had been brave—one of only two times in her whole life—giving her life in exchange for her village, and it pierced her deeply to hear so many scorn that act of bravery, that sacrifice. And yet, it hurt more to know that Rumplestiltskin faced that open contempt every day from every person in, apparently, every world. For the first time in years, Belle felt the sudden, overpowering urge to stand, to protect, to shield him from what was in these people’s eyes and mouths and thoughts when they looked at him, to take him in her arms and assure him that he was not a monster, that not everyone hated him, that _she_ loved him.

But she had lost her chance, lost her place as his champion and comforter when she walked away, so she crumpled his red handkerchief—the same color as had been the vest he’d worn on the day she’d had everything and lost everything—in her fists and bit her lip to keep in her fierce words.

But Rumplestiltskin did not need a protector. He had ever been a master at words and wordplay, this game of shaping syllables into weapons and shields and illusions that cast suspicion elsewhere. He stood without flinching before the disdain, without even acknowledging it, just gave a tiny shrug that downplayed Emma’s accusation as an absurd overreaction.

“Another word for janitor or maid,” he said smoothly, eyes neutrally uncaring and evasively honest. “The phrase means different things in different places and you can clearly hear from her voice that she’s not from here.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed, and Belle could practically see the thoughts spinning in her head, so much more frenetic and sharp-edged than the spinning of Rumplestiltskin’s wheel, as the sheriff turned back to her. “What exactly did you do for him?”

A tiny thread of irritation, maybe even resentment, began to uncoil somewhere deep inside Belle. She was afraid and lost and alone— _so terribly, awfully alone in a way I never dreamed of before_ —and confused, and she did not like all these questions, did not like having to think through the sludge that enveloped her thoughts, did not like the way this sheriff looked at her— _no, he is not mine, not any longer_ —at Rumplestiltskin. But she was still used to docility, used to meekness, so she kept tight hold of the polite grace her instructors had drilled into her before the ogre wars brought more pressing concerns, and said in a cool tone, “I cleaned his shop, dusted the objects, washed the shelves, took down the curtains when spring came along, organized the rooms, that sort of thing.”

Emma relaxed, just slightly, darted a swift, searching look between Belle and Rumplestiltskin. She paused for just an instant, so quick it almost wasn’t there, and then she straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. “Miss French, before you decide to go with Mr. Gold, I think you should know that not long ago, he was arrested for assaulting your father.”

“My father,” Belle repeated, and did not know what to think. She had left her father behind a lifetime ago, had said goodbye to him and left without a backward glance. Even after being thrown out of the Dark Castle, she had spared no more than a thought to going back to him before realizing she could never wholly leave Rumplestiltskin. To hear of him now seemed surreal, as if she had been dragged back in time to the years of her childhood. She chanced a glance to the door, half-expecting him to be standing there, ready to swing her into his arms and spin her in a circle, laughing up at her, just as he had done when she was very small. Instead, all she saw was Rumplestiltskin standing alone, leaning on his cane, watching her with the same expression he’d worn when he told her he expected never to see her again.

“Yes,” Emma said, and Belle wondered if she imagined the slight trace of vindictiveness coloring her tone when there was only concern and compassion in her gaze. “Mr. Gold kidnapped him, tied him up, and beat him with his cane. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go with him.”

Belle stared at her, tried hard to see her, but all she could see was Gaston holding her back, her father trying to stop her from saving her people, obstacles in the path between her and Rumplestiltskin. “I want to go with him,” she said again, because really, what else was there to say? She _had_ nowhere else to go, and she had, after all, given her word. Even if this was an entirely new world, it hadn’t been forever yet.

“But, Miss French—”

“Ru—Gold always has reasons for what he does,” Belle interrupted, _tired_ of being meek and compliant and graceful, so utterly tired of fighting for what she wanted when all around her stood in her way. She felt the sudden urge to throw a tantrum and scream and shriek at this strange woman in strange clothing with her strange way of talking that she had no idea who Rumplestiltskin really was, that she was more confused than Belle was, that she herself knew very well what she was doing. But she didn’t, because it would take too much energy, require too much effort, and because Rumplestiltskin’s altered, familiar eyes were on her, steadying her, grounding her.

“I want to go with Gold,” she said again, and she hoped that was enough because she had nothing more to give, nothing else to say. She turned from Emma, dismissing her, too overwhelmed to continue to deal with the reality of another person in her universe, and she met Rumplestiltskin’s eyes. “Please,” she whispered, and even if he had found a new True Love to kiss away his curse, even if he no longer needed her, even if her chance with him had so clearly passed her by, he gifted her with a soft smile and nodded, and Belle knew she was safe because Rumplestiltskin never broke his promises.

Relaxed, reassured, Belle closed her eyes and surrendered to her exhaustion.

\---


	4. Out Of Hope

_\---  
_

_Belle is alive_.

She was breathing—he had seen it, seen her chest rise and fall with short, shuddering breaths as she looked up from the darkness of her cell, had felt it as he carried her in his arms, carried her out of the danger he had put her in and left her in and now, far, far too late, finally rescued her from. She breathed, and he would have gladly, joyously, given up every breath of air he himself took if only it meant that she kept sipping in air, kept breathing, kept that pale pink tint in her cheeks, that spark in her perfect blue eyes, that way she had of reaching out a hand to him when no one else would.

She was breathing, and she was moving, and she was speaking, and she made a shapeless hospital gown look more elegant than any ball gown, and she was as brave and strong as he remembered, and it was all more than he had ever convinced himself to hope for. He had reached out for straw and caught something so much more precious than gold, grasped at that last, impossible hope and been granted the world.

But there was more— _though how can there possibly be anything_ more _, anything_ better _, than her being alive?_ —more to leave him in a daze of wonder and awe and hope threatening to break the heart he now had back in his chest.

She remembered.

She remembered him. Remembered Rumplestiltskin and the Dark Castle and teacups and straw turning into gold and springtime and roses and flirting with a monster and True Love’s Kiss.

She _remembered_.

He had not even been able to comprehend what it would mean for her to be alive, let alone managed to plan what he would do should she not remember him. He had tried to warn himself that the curse would have her mind in thrall, but only when he was on his way down the narrow staircase leading to her dungeon; he had tried to brace himself for the lack of recognition, of that spark he’d seen there those last weeks in her presence, but only when he was reaching out to open her dungeon door—not the first time he’d done that, either—careless of the fact that he was using up some of his carefully hoarded magical items to unlock the doors, heedless of the fact that the flickers of magic would alert Regina to his actions. _Let her know_ , he’d thought fiercely. _Let her know, and fear_.

For all his hectic preparation, he had not been ready for that first sight of her, for the sudden joy exploding into being within his chest where so long had resided only emptiness stamped with two names, for the answering hope in her eyes. She had breathed, and she had spoken his name, and she had touched him, and she had trusted him, and he did not think he would ever be able to fully grasp all that those things meant to him.

She was alive, and she remembered him, and from all that he could deduce, she was not angry at him.

But no. She was good and brilliant and all that was right in any world, and that explained why she could be alive, why she could escape the fate evil had tried to write for her. But he was still the monster, still the beast, and beasts didn’t get happy endings. So she could be alive, and she could even recognize him, but he could not expect things to be the way they had been before his fear and suspicion and alarm ruined what would have been the happy ever after were he anyone else.

Besides…she had flinched away from him.

Rumplestiltskin was used to people recoiling in fear or disgust; Gold was accustomed to people drawing away from him for the same reasons. In fact, he had grown to relish the reaction, to court it, to entertain solely for the purpose of making them flinch away from him. It kept them out of his space, kept himself safe behind the barriers he established, kept his plans and goals and possessions secret. He smiled at people sometimes, just to see them start away, said things with just the right intonation to bring out that little jump to their stance, revulsion and repugnance turned into nothing more damaging than a game he played with them all.

In fact, he had very intentionally tried to make Regina flinch away from him on his short visit there before Belle woke, ambling into her office as if he hadn’t just expended more magic than he’d used in three decades, as if he wasn’t incandescent with rage and fury and the glacial desire for vengeance.

“Interesting places you keep bargaining chips,” he’d said as casually as if remarking on the ever-present bowl of apples on the table.

She’d known he was coming, of course, which was why she hadn’t flown to the hospital. Regina only liked confrontation when she was the one who held the power, and she knew—oh _, she knew_ —that she had no chance against him in this situation. So she’d only given him a tight smile and said, “You can’t blame me for trying.”

“Oh, no.” He’d given her his own tight, close-mouthed smile, viciously pleased when she paled, her hands splayed painfully tightly against her desk so they wouldn’t tremble. “I don’t blame you at all. In fact, _dearie_ ,” and oh, how he’d drawn that word out, flashed a smile that _finally_ bared teeth, lifted his cane and examined its length, “I commend you on your play.” And he’d saluted her with his cane, relishing the tiny flinch she’d made when he brought the cane back down only to rest it on the stark floor.

“You would have done the same in my place,” she’d said, and give her all due credit, she admitted and faced up to his wrath and met his eye with a cant to her chin. Never one to back down, that was the Queen, fighting to the bitter end. And oh, how bitter her end would be; he’d considered it already, naturally, but now he’d personally make sure of it.

“Indeed, which interestingly enough, brings me to the point of this little chat.” He’d reached out, greedily licked up the sight of another miniscule flinch, closed his gloved hand over the framed photo resting on her desk. Let his dark eyes rest so pointedly on the smiling boy staring up at him, dark hair tousled, one hand held in the image of his mother’s. “We’ve been playing by rules, your Majesty, unspoken rules, but rules nonetheless. It seems, however—unfortunately—that you’ve decided to change the style of play.”

“Rumplestiltskin—”

And _yes_ , the power, the sheer, potent _magic_ in that name. _His_ name. He’d basked in it, straightened before it, felt some of that fiery pain in his knee recede, sensed just a hint of caged lightning crackle around him.

“You see, your Majesty,” he’d said, eyes caressing Henry’s fixed form, intimately aware of every tensed muscle, every nervous tic, every furious fluttering of eyelashes, every beat of her not-quite-empty heart. “I made a mistake, left my weakness where you could find it, let you use it, steal it, lock it away.” And he’d had to stop, had to take a deep breath, had to loosen his grip over the buckling glass, had to pull that buzzing magic back inside himself before it could burrow deep inside Regina’s flesh and sear every delicate vein to dry, barren tracks of pain. “That was my mistake,” he’d said when he could speak without snarling. “But you made a mistake too, and you’ve left pictures of him everywhere, and you’ve paraded him around in front of the whole town for anyone and everyone to see.”

“You wouldn’t…” And then, finally, deliciously, Regina’s façade had cracked, and there was pure terror hiding there underneath.

And Rumplestiltskin _smiled_. Set down the picture, turned it so she could see the crack running across the boy’s face. “The rules have changed, your Majesty. So let’s make new ones.”

“Don’t…” She half-rose from her chair, one hand raised in supplication, her voice that snap of command with that ragged edge of desperate terror. “Don’t take him. Don’t touch him. He’s just a child.”

“And what was Belle?” he growled, lightning and lava and frigid ice roaring outward from him, pure death in his eyes. And she’d recoiled, falling back into her chair, eyes wide, breaths panicked, and once more, he’d contained himself, held himself back, caged the beast within, smiled that malevolent smile that had frightened all he’d met save for one young, brave girl. “Let’s set out the new rules, shall we?”

“What do you want?” Resentment, like cancer, crawling through her words, defeat blackening eyes darker even than his.

“So glad you asked.” A deal, a contract, a desperate soul—he was more Rumplestiltskin in that moment than he had been since a curse had been unleashed to rip away one world and grasp strangling, twisting hold of another. “I have Belle. She’s mine. You don’t touch her, don’t go near her, don’t speak to her, don’t mention her. In return, you have Henry. He’s yours. But…if Belle dies, Henry dies. If Belle disappears, Henry disappears. If Belle gets sick, Henry gets sick. If Belle gets frightened, Henry gets frightened. Get the picture, _dearie_?”

“Yes,” she’d hissed. “Belle for Henry. Deal.”

“Good.” Rumplestiltskin had turned, then, and his cane hadn’t stopped him from making the flourish with his hands he’d made a thousand times before yet hadn’t made in decades. “I’d be very careful if I were you, Regina. Your son’s life is in your hands. Guess we’ll finally find out how much you really do love him, eh?”

And he’d turned unexpectedly to give her one last baring of his teeth, one last ruthless burn of his eyes, and she’d flinched away from him. Left behind, seething, as he walked out of her office, walked away, not afraid to turn his back on her, not at that moment, though he’d have to be careful in the future, have to be prepared for her desperate wrangling to get the upper hand once more.

Yes, he loved seeing Regina flinch back, didn’t mind the doctors and nurses drawing away from him as quickly as they could…but Belle? Belle hadn’t recoiled from him since…since when? When had she _ever_ flinched away from him? When had she _ever_ pulled away from his touch? Avoided his presence? Recoiled in fear?

She hadn’t. Ever. Even when he snarled like a ravening beast at her free offer of her heart, ripped it into shreds with accusations and roars, stamped it beneath his feet with his order to _Go_ and his blatant lies. Even when he took her arms in his hands and shook her slender frame, felt her bones beneath his cruel fingers, lashed his hot breath over her confused and crushed face. Even then, she had not pulled away, had instead reached out to try to catch hold of his hands, had raised her voice to sound over his. Even then, she’d turned on her heel and faced him and lashed out with her own piercing, stabbing, prophetic words.

But now…now at only the sight of his face—staring down at her, taken aback by the impact of seeing her eyes again, glad to have chased everyone else from the room so he could be with her—she wept. And when he reached out to draw a finger over her features, so afraid she was only a delusion brought on by worry over that laughing, sobbing teacup, she’d pulled away from his touch.

It threw him off, he admitted it—confused him utterly. She had said his name, and slipped into his arms as if she’d always been there, and entrusted her protection to him with no hint of doubt, and begged for his presence, and looked to him instead of Emma, and chosen to go back to the dubious protection of his home.

But she’d flinched from him.

_“You’re not a monster_.”

Belle had always confused him, from the moment she’d knelt and bit her lip over a dropped cup all the way through the day she’d returned to her captivity even after being granted freedom, so perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that she was already confusing him again. Already making him forget plans and ignore goals and take his eyes off his single-minded pursuit. Already bringing back those feelings of long-forgotten hope and long-abandoned uncertainty and long-ignored love.

_And she is alive_.

And that was enough for now. That was enough _forever_. Even if she hadn’t chosen to come home with him, if he’d never been able to talk to her again, he would be happy if only he knew she was breathing and smiling and _alive_. He’d be happy if he had to get by on only occasional glimpses of her in the town.

_But she_ is _coming home_ , he reminded himself.

_Home_. And suddenly the house he’d been living in for over twenty-eight years felt like a home, took on the same qualities the Dark Castle had been imbued with the instant Belle arrived. Rumplestiltskin had once felt his castle transform into home, and now, in Storybrooke as in their real world, Mr. Gold felt the same.

Of course, Belle didn’t walk in on her own this time. No, she was carried in by a pair of orderlies from the hospital, borne like treasure up the stairs and into the room he’d hurriedly prepared for her. Not that it had been hard. There were more bedrooms than he needed in this house— _easy to accomplish when you only need one_ —and without him ever analyzing it, he’d put everything he found through the years that he thought Belle would like into this one room. Just like he’d made a room for Bae in the Dark Castle, he’d kept a room for Belle, too, in this house.

He hovered at the edges, his own leg useless after what he’d demanded of it to carry Belle to safety. He shrugged aside his childish desire to carry her to her room and deposit her gently in her bed himself; he’d never been a knight in shining armor, some Prince Charming to inspire stories and swoons and sighs, and this was just one more example of that. But still he hovered and watched, hands tightly folded over the handle of his cane, a lump in his throat to see the room—empty even with all the books and soft blankets and paintings of the ocean—now brought to life and meaning and purpose by the presence of the woman he’d so long thought was dead.

“She’s sleeping,” Gypsy informed him as she came out of the bedroom. Her mass of black curls spilled over her shoulders, her vivid purple blouse at odds with the wood and amber colors of his house, her compassion dwarfing her wariness with him. He disliked the necessity of having a live-in nurse, but he knew Belle would probably need one, and Gypsy Chime was the only one he’d trust with Belle’s life. The nurse didn’t like Gold—no one did—but Belle was an outcast who’d been hurt and Gold had offered to forgive Ms. Chime’s family’s debts, and those were reasons enough and more than to ensure Gypsy’s complete loyalty.

“Medicated sleep?” he asked, arching a brow.

“No, just tired from the move.” Gypsy hesitated, then offered him a tiny—reassuring? _no, it couldn’t be_ —smile. “She’ll probably be awake in an hour or so, and then I’ll have her take a shower and get her changed into something else. That should make her feel better all on its own. Do you…do you have any clothes for her?”

“I’ll get some,” Gold said, grateful for this opportunity to be helpful, to _do_ something. He turned to leave but was halted by Gypsy.

“Mr. Gold.” She snatched her hand back long before it could reach his sleeve. “Not to be too forward, but have you ever bought clothing for a woman before?”

With an irritated sigh, Gold turned back to the nurse. “Fine. You do it. Buy whatever you think she’ll need immediately; she can pick out the rest when she’s better.”

Gypsy took the credit card he handed her, but her turquoise eyes were intent and somewhat wondering on him.

“You have a problem?” he snapped, fighting to keep the bit of magic he’d reclaimed locked within him. It had been a long time since he’d had any magic, and he was out of practice in harnessing it to his soul when it so badly wanted to leap out at anything and everything.

“No,” Gypsy said slowly. “Not at all, Mr. Gold.” She gave a slight shake of her head and gestured back to Belle. “If you’ll watch her, I’ll be back in a half hour or so.”

Gold didn’t bother to watch the woman slip down the stairs and out of the door; he had eyes only for Belle. Drawn forward, slowly, as if mesmerized, he found himself standing at her bedside, standing over her. But that was wrong. He shouldn’t be towering over her, not like this; he was taller than her, but it had almost always been her looking down at him, from her perch on the table or her work on a ladder or her position standing to serve him while he sat at the table. And strangely, he had never minded her looking down at him, not when she always did it with a smile, with an open, curious expression, with that searching look in her eyes, as if trying to puzzle him out.

_Love is layered_.

Heavily, Gold sank into the chair he’d placed by her bedside, his legs buckling under him. All the memories he’d fled for so long—the memories that had crept their way into his mind no matter how much he distracted himself with the contents of his shop—came flooding back into his mind, drowning and silencing the laughter of the teacup. And finally, after an eternity of grief, his world was quiet, hushed, broken only by the sound of Belle breathing in and out.

He couldn’t help himself, then, couldn’t pull back and list all the reasons he shouldn’t. He reached out with a trembling hand and lightly, so gently, slid his fingers beneath hers, curled his hand around hers. He wondered if it was only his desperate _hoping_ that made him think her own fingers curled around his. He could feel tiny bones beneath the paper-thin flesh, but it was warm, and in her wrist, her pulse thrummed rhythmically, and that was enough.

_Belle is alive_.

She slept deeply, brilliant eyes covered by curving lashes, pale skin perfect, unmarred by scarring inflicted by scourges or flaying. She was thin, almost too slight under the blankets and ragged hospital gown, but her fingers curved around his, and her chest rose and fell, and he could have sat there a hundred years and been perfectly content just watching her breathe. Even the shards of glass locked inside his knee, grinding with every movement, couldn’t convince him to move; he was afraid to even breathe, terrified he would shatter this moment and bring it all crashing down on him.

A moment or a decade could have passed, it was all the same to him. But then she stirred, turning her head into the pillow, her hand shifting in his. His breath caught in his throat, his eyes jerked up to hers…and her eyes were open. Staring straight back at him. Silver-glazed blue that seemed to catch every shred of light and refract it back at him, blinding him, dazzling him. And she smiled at him, and her hand tightened on his, and he thought his heart might stop mid-beat.

Because she wasn’t drawing away in fear, wasn’t yanking her hand out of his, wasn’t shaking. She was smiling at _him_ , and that look in her eyes…that look was exactly the same look he’d seen on her face when he’d caught her and turned from the unfamiliar sunlight to the even more brilliant sight of her, content and unmoving in his monstrous arms, staring at him as if she were seeing something so much more deserving than he really was.

His throat was dry, his tongue thick in his mouth, his mind too dazed to think of a single thing to say. All he could do was curve his hand further over hers, cradling it as tenderly as he knew how. All he could do was hope that the stark emotion on his face was enough to say everything he couldn’t utter.

She opened her mouth, and he was sure she was going to say his name, was already anticipating the thrill of hearing his real name spoken in her beautiful voice, was leaning forward, his free hand itching to reach up and cup her cheek in the curve of his palm—but the moment was broken when Gypsy came into the room, slipping through the open door, setting overflowing plastic bags down in the corner and smiling at Belle.

Gold snatched the magic back inside him, squeezed his eyes shut until he was sure he had it under control, sure it wouldn’t snap outward to incinerate the interruption that had ripped away this transient moment of perfection between him and Belle. With an inward pang, he also snatched his hand free of Belle’s; Gypsy was loyal to Belle, not him, and the last thing he needed was the nurse bringing tales to Emma that would give her an excuse to take Belle away from him.

“Awake already?” Gypsy bestowed a congenial smile on Belle. “If you’d like and are feeling up to it, we can get you a shower and some fresh clothes. I don’t know about you, but that always makes me feel better.”

“Belle—” Gold turned to Belle to introduce her to the nurse, but he was taken aback by the stricken expression on her face as she stared at Gypsy. “Belle?” he said again, more quietly, and it took all his self-control not to take her into his arms and try to soothe away whatever was hurting her.

For just a split second, she met his gaze, and there was such awful, crushing sadness there that Gold felt the heart she’d just returned to his chest split in two. He’d do anything to keep her from feeling a moment’s more of pain, and yet he had no idea what was causing this. _What did that evil soul do to you?_ he wondered fiercely. He’d kill her! Forget the curse and the prophecy and his plans; he’d destroy Regina for whatever she’d done that left such agony written across Belle’s beautiful, beloved features.

But it was only there an instant, and then it was gone, and she only looked tired and defeated.

“Belle,” he said again. He was repeating himself, but he really couldn’t bring himself to care. He hadn’t said her name for decades, and just saying it now, knowing she heard and recognized and would respond to it, was a healing balm to his soul. “This is Gypsy Chime. She’s going to take care of you.”

Belle swallowed, but managed a small smile. “Thank you,” she said quietly, her voice choked.

And Gold faded back to the edges as Gypsy came forward and wrapped Belle up in her generous compassion and calming protectiveness. He backed through the door, treating himself to one last look of Belle, now sitting on the edge of her bed as Gypsy helped her stand—he met her eyes, and his breath caught because her eyes were so shadowed and dark, mere hollows in her face. But then the door closed, and he was alone in the empty hallway, and Belle was once more hidden from him.

Fighting back the urge to put his fist through the wall, Gold took a deep breath and straightened his bad leg. He stared at the closed door a moment longer, then turned and found himself face to face with Emma Swan.

“Sheriff Swan,” he said, managing to hide his startlement and keep hold of the bit of magic he possessed. _How embarrassing if the Dark One lost his only magic because he was surprised by a cat-footed sheriff_ , he thought wryly. “Finished up with your rescue of the others in Regina’s basement?”

“There was no one else down there—including the janitor we left behind.”

“What a pity,” Gold said, but he couldn’t find the energy needed to infuse any real feeling into his tone. He had Belle and he couldn’t care less about whoever else Regina might have had locked down there. “Has your nurse given you any useful information?”

“She’s about as helpful and communicative as you,” Emma remarked flatly.

“So what are you doing here?” he asked, managing to quirk an eyebrow as if he really cared about her answer. All he cared about was in the room behind her, but he knew if he let on just how _much_ he cared about Belle, the over-protective, over-suspicious Emma Swan would be camping out at Belle’s bedside, or worse, forcibly moving her to her own place. And that was not something Gold was going to let happen. He’d just gotten Belle back; he couldn’t lose her again.

“I’m staying here, remember? You offered me a room.”

“Ah, yes. I prepared rooms for you and the live-in nurse—who I’m assuming you’ve met since someone had to let you in the house—downstairs.”

“Downstairs?” Emma’s eyes were hard, stubborn, and Gold felt a surge of impatience with these ridiculous obstacles. Why would they not all leave him alone to be with Belle? The savior was denser than he’d thought possible if she really thought he could ever hurt Belle. Not again. Never again. “And where’s your room?”

“There.” Gold pointed to a door at the end of the hall. “Belle’s staying up here because there’s a private bathroom attached to her room and because it’s the largest bedroom. You can examine it if you think I’m trying to cheat her.”

“I don’t think that.” But her eyes didn’t lose that hard gleam either. “I just think either Gypsy or I should stay up here with her in case she needs us during the night. What about that room? I could stay there.” She gestured to the closed door between his and Belle’s room, took a step toward it, stopped abruptly when Gold interposed his cane in front of her, his hand rock-steady.

“That room is special,” he said coldly, menacingly, his heart in his throat. “It’s for only one person. Nobody else uses it.”

Emma studied him intently for a long moment before finally giving a short nod, almost uncertainly. Gold hid his sigh of relief when she stepped back; he didn’t think he had the energy he’d need to stop her from entering the room had she decided to force the issue. And he knew he didn’t have the emotional resources necessary to glimpse the inside of that room with all its personalized furnishings and familiar articles.

“Fine,” she conceded. “But I know something fishy is going on here, Mr. Gold, and I’m not going to let you get away with anything.”

“More accusations,” he said, and despite himself, a bit of his tiredness leaked into his voice. He turned back to Belle’s room, took a step. “I assure you, Sheriff Swan, I have no intention of harming Belle.”

“Really? I looked her up, Gold.”

He froze, leaned carefully on his cane, did not turn to look at her. _The curse_ , he assured himself. _The curse will have made sure there was something to find_. It was self-protective, always wrapping itself more tightly around its inhabitants. It would have taken his story and, with Belle’s discovery, made sure there were documents to prove what he’d said. Or it should have. But Emma was here now, and things were different, and…and beasts didn’t get happy endings. Belle was alive, and that was more happiness than he deserved, and he knew down to the very marrow of his bones that something would happen to take it all away. _But not so soon._ Please _, not so soon!_

“There’s no record of her having worked for you,” Emma continued. “In fact, when I talked to Moe French, he said she had never worked for you.”

_Regina_ , he thought. Even now trying to work against him, trying to distract him with all these little problems and tasks and inconsistencies, trying to make herself time to find another bargaining chip. With a slight grimace of pain as he moved, he swiveled to face Emma—the savior he’d been waiting for with dying patience, standing there and doing the mayor’s dirty work without even knowing it.

“Of course he’d say that,” Gold sneered. “He wouldn’t admit to the fact that his own daughter worked for his creditor. How would that make him look? Sending his daughter to get a job in the hopes it would make his own debts a little lighter—can’t really see any self-respecting father admitting to that, can you? And there were no public records that she worked for me because her wages went straight to her father’s debts. I have paperwork at my shop to prove the whole thing; I’ll show them to you in the morning. Now,” he shifted his weight, tried not to let it show how much he was leaning on his cane, tried not to stagger as his exhaustion finally caught up to him, “if there’s nothing else, I’ll check on my guest and then retire for the night.”

“Gold.” Emma took a step closer to him—closer than he liked anyone to be, and he tensed—and met his eyes. “What is the deal between you and this girl? You do realize that she’s a _lot_ younger than you and that she’s been hurt and is vulnerable right now, don’t you? You know what this looks like?”

“Your concern is touching,” he commented acerbically. “But our relationship is really no concern of yours. As to the rest, yes, I realize that she’s hurt and vulnerable. If you’ll recall, I’m the one who rescued her. Now, I’m sure you can find everything you need downstairs—your room is off the hallway, third doorway to the left, and the bathroom’s just across from it. If you need anything, Ms. Chime can help you find it.”

Emma let him go, and Gold was glad. He didn’t think he could have kept the surging of his magic concealed for much longer. He waited until he heard her going down the stairs before he knocked once on Belle’s door, waited for Gypsy’s “Come in,” and then stepped inside.

“Do you mind if Mr. Gold comes in?” Gypsy was asking Belle, who didn’t appear to have noticed Gold’s entrance, staring up at Gypsy as the nurse helped her back into bed. Belle’s hair was a damp riot of curls cascading down her back, soft enough to touch, and Gold’s hand clenched into a fist at his side. The flannel pajamas she was wearing were just a bit too large for her, but their dark green color suited her, made her skin look porcelain-pale, reflected back jade highlights to catch in her eyes.

Gold froze where he was, unable to look away from her, his heart in his throat. He knew, then, that for all the centuries he had lived and for everything he had seen, there was no more beautiful sight than this.

“You call him Mr. Gold, too?” Belle asked Gypsy, swinging her legs up on the bed. She sounded surprised, and her eyes—still sad and tight with weariness—were wide.

“What else would I call him?” Gypsy asked with a sideways grin as she settled the blankets around Belle’s tiny form.

“You don’t know?” Belle blurted, and the confusion on her face made Gold smile, just a bit, remembering the baffled look she’d worn on her face after getting a glimpse of one of his stranger conjurations. “I mean, surely _you_ would know.”

Gypsy frowned down at her. “Know what? His first name? I’m almost convinced he doesn’t even have one.”

Belle was stunned, though Gold couldn’t figure out why; the most difficult spell had always been easier to untangle than Belle’s thoughts. “No, I…you don’t…aren’t you the one who…well, how long have you been here?”

“Belle,” Gold said suddenly, interrupting, stepping farther into the room. He had had only seconds to tell her the basics of their situation, and though he was sure he had mentioned no one here knew they weren’t originally from this world, he also knew it all must be overwhelming for her. Besides, he had watched long enough; he needed to look at her, to see her looking back, to know that she still remembered him.

“Ru—Gold,” she greeted him, and yes, she did still recognize him. Had almost said _his_ name. She wasn’t looking at him, her eyes locked on her clasped fingers, but Gold felt reassured, comforted, convinced once again that he was awake and sane.

“I…” He paused, aware that he didn’t really have an excuse for coming back in, that he couldn’t say any of the things he wanted to, not with Gypsy standing there. He had apologies and explanations and answers for Belle, but he could voice none of them. So instead, he simply gave a small smile and said, “I came to see if there was anything else you needed.”

“No,” she said, her voice so quiet he almost couldn’t hear it. “You’ve both been so kind to me. Thank you.”

Gold frowned, tried to hide his trace of hurt. It was his own fault, he knew that; he had sent her from his presence, banished her from the Dark Castle—but it still hurt to have her treat him as if he were no more than a host. “You don’t have to thank me,” he said faintly. “Not you.”

But Gypsy was frowning at him again, that wondering look back in her eyes, and she was waiting for him to leave, and Belle wasn’t saying anything, so he straightened. “Good night, Belle.”

And there was nothing else to do but step outside the room, flinch away from the sound of the door closing behind him, and retreat to his own room where sleep eluded him and the teacup began to once more whisper taunts in his mind.

_Belle is alive…but she isn’t yours anymore._

_And this time, there’s no deal you can make to win her back._

 ---

At first he thought it was the teacup—retrieved and stowed away in his bedroom when he knew he’d have company downstairs—mocking him yet again, bringing the echoes of past sobs into the present to inflict more penance on him. But the teacup had never made this sad weeping, so quiet, hushed, as if dampened in a pillow or a sleeve. Never made the sobs in a woman’s precious voice, not when he’d never heard Belle crying to imagine it later castigating him.

Gold frowned, looked up from his blank perusal of the teacup, cradled in his hands. The crying was not audible, not truly, but it was evident to him, brought on a trace of magic, carried on a hint of empathy and connection forged through a kiss that had been all too brief. It took him a long moment to realize Belle was crying, and only a mere instant to realize it was the excuse he’d been looking for.

It was just approaching midnight— _the perfect time for a failure of a prince to see his lady love_ , he couldn’t help but think wryly—and he struggled out of his bed, carefully placed the teacup in the cabinet next to his bed, grabbed his cane and his robe, and left his cold, empty bedroom. He struggled to slip the bathrobe on and walk down the hallway without using his cane—the tapping against the hardwood would be a dead giveaway to Emma downstairs that he was up and about. With the ease of long practice, he ignored the grinding pain scorching along his right leg at every barefooted step.

Perfunctorily, he knocked on Belle’s door, but it was cracked slightly open to begin with, and he didn’t wait for a response before stepping inside the room. The moon shone through the arching windows—hung with only sheer curtains—and the light had been left on in the adjoining bathroom, and by these points of illumination, Gold saw Belle sitting curled up in bed, her knees under her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs.

“Belle,” he said faintly, struck to the core by this proof of her pain. Of her torment. _My fault._

She looked up, the tracks of tears gleaming like silvery gold in the moonlight, eyes wide and crystalline. She looked so wistful, so melancholy, that Gold couldn’t help but walk to her side. He hesitated, then cautiously perched on the edge of the bed, relaxed infinitesimally when Belle didn’t tense. In fact, she brought up trembling hands to wipe the tears away, curled her legs to the side, faced him just as she’d done countless nights in the Dark Castle, talking to him or reading to him as he spun gold to distract himself from thoughts he couldn’t endure and yet couldn’t escape.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and Gold’s breath caught in his throat.

“ _You’re_ sorry,” he repeated, and incredulousness sounded like derision on his tongue. “Whatever for?”

“For crying.” She wiped impatiently at another tear, took in a shuddering breath, and as much as he loved to watch her breathe, he didn’t like the ragged edge to this inhalation. “I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t be. I should be so happy—and I am!” One hand reached toward him, fingers brushed ever so lightly against his bare wrist, and then she was tucking her hand back into her lap, hiding it beneath her other. “I _am_ happy. I mean…you came for me. You rescued me—”

“But it took me so long,” he interrupted, rage he meant for himself feathering the edges of his clumsy, useless apology. “I didn’t—”

“But you did come,” Belle said, and her tears were submerged beneath something else, something new and intoxicating and familiar. Once more, her hand flitted outward to alight so impermanently on his wrist before being withdrawn, as if he were fire that threatened to scorch her skin. “You came. And you brought me home”—Gold jerked at her casual, natural use of that word to refer to even this place in a strange world, only a pale echo of the Dark Castle, which itself had been more her prison than her home—“and this room…it’s like you made it for me.”

She looked at him, then, her head cocked ever so slightly, one corner of her mouth turned up just a bit higher than the other, and Gold— _no, in this moment,_ Rumplestiltskin—was frozen, trapped like an animal in a cage, at this so-familiar expression. The expression she always gave him when she knew more than she was saying, when she saw through him.

“This?” And there was more than a trace of Rumplestiltskin’s mischievous tone bleeding through into the night, this dark cocoon of _their_ world fashioning itself around just the two of them. “It was just laying around.”

She let out a breathy laugh—so short, so quick, so startling to both of them. They stared at each other for an eternity, a mere second, and then her face was crumpling up into tears she so valiantly tried to fight back. He gaped at her, features fixed, shock blatant in his eyes. The tiny little catch in her throat, too small to be a sob, propelled him into movement; he reached out a tremulous hand, reached forward to brush a curl back from her face, and then, drawn to her, stroked a finger down the side of her face.

Or started to, anyway. She drew back before he could do more than register the petal-soft sensation of her warm skin. “Don’t,” she breathed, so softly it was like the utterance of his fears. She brought up her hands to cover her face, muffling her next words. “I can’t. I’m not strong enough. I can’t…”

Acid boiled through him, but it was nothing compared to the dull, heavy lump of gold turning back into molding straw in the pit of his stomach. He stayed motionless, unable to move a muscle. An old, crippled man sitting in the dark, holding onto the cane that was his only companion.

_It’s over_.

And it was so unfair, so horribly, terribly _cruel_ to have given him this hope, to have given him the feel of her and the smell of her and the sound of his name on her lips only to take it all away from him mere hours later. To catch only a glimpse of golden happiness before it turned into ashy straw in his mouth. And for a moment, he was Rumplestiltskin the sheep-herder, Rumplestiltskin the coward, Rumplestiltskin the scorned, awkward and clumsy and disappointed and oh so desperate.

“Rumplestiltskin.”

_Unnecessary cruelty to have her say my name_ again _, to say it in_ that _tone, for her to be looking at me like_ that _._ He was suddenly, irrationally angry, wanted to snap and snarl and cower away, a hurt animal backed into a corner, afraid and desperate and dangerous. But he had done that already, lived the consequences once, and he couldn’t do it again. So he turned his head the fraction of an inch, the slight movement almost shattering him, and met her soft, open expression.

“I missed you,” she admitted.

As suddenly as he had turned angry, he now abruptly found himself staving off an impossible flicker of hope. Belle was not so unkind, surely, as to say such a sentence so infused with pure emotion and look at him with shimmering eyes in moonlight if she were telling him she never wanted to see him again. _Would she? Even after what I did to her?_

“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “And I missed you. I…I thought you were dead, Belle. She said you were, and…and I could never find you. I thought…”

It wasn’t justification enough for leaving her to suffer because of him, could never be sufficient excuse, but Belle curled her lips up as if she could still give him a smile after what he’d caused to be done to her. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought she were giving him a sad smile, reaching out with that dancing, fluttering hand to almost touch him, her eyes studying his face intently. But she couldn’t be. Not after what he had done, what he had failed to do, what he had put her through.

“I’m sorry,” she said. At least, he thought that was what she said, though it made no sense at all. He stared at her uncomprehendingly, and she gave another poignant smile, looked down at her hands, twisted together in her lap, the blankets bunched beneath her bare feet. From beneath her lashes, she chanced another glance at him. “You look so different,” she observed again, a flood of tears dammed behind that bravery he so badly envied and so greatly admired.

“Yes.” The word was almost unintelligible, his throat tight and strained, his eyes locked on hers. Afraid that if he said the wrong thing, she would send him away. Afraid that if he said too much, he would break this quiet protective spell cast around them. Afraid to even move lest she realize just how much cause she had to turn him away.

“And…and you got caught up in this curse along with everyone else. You couldn’t protect yourself, couldn’t stop it.”

At the moment, Rumplestiltskin couldn’t care less about the curse, had no desire to speak of it at all. All he wanted to do was blurt out just how much he loved her—but it was so hard to speak aloud such a strong truth when it’d been so long since he’d been able to speak anything but half-truths and implied falsehoods—wanted to tell her he was sorry—but how could he bring up something so painful when she was so obviously trying to be brave?—wanted to reach out and bury his hands in her hair, trace the edge of her jawline, lean forward and correct the mistake he’d made when she’d kissed him—but he couldn’t do that, not when she was sitting so straight and erect and strong, saying things that made it sound as if she were trying to let him down gently.

So all he said was, “Well, I was in a cage at the time,” with that twisted smirk on his lips that had once been his most common expression.

“What?” She was surprised, outraged, and he couldn’t figure her out, couldn’t understand what she was thinking, what she was feeling, what she wanted from him. He almost wished she would just get it over with and tell him thanks all the same but she would rather not throw her life away on a monster in the guise of a man who had demolished her heart and cast her out and left her to rot in the Queen’s dungeons. But then it really would be over, and so he grasped tight hold of these precious seconds before the end.

“They caged you?” she demanded. “You don’t belong in a cage!”

He shrugged. “Yes, well, the cost of having enemies, my dear.” Old speech patterns, old behaviors, old gestures, all of them coming back to him because he was oh so vulnerable right now, and there was no better way to deflect attention and suspicion than to distract and flourish and pretend nothing could touch him behind the guise of insanity that was all too often much more than illusion.

Shadows scattered from before the sight of her tiny smile, the amused smile that had always surprised him when she flashed it at him. But it slipped away too quickly, leaving pain in its wake. His hands clenched, one on the cane and one tangled in the sheets on the edge of the bed, necessary to prevent himself from reaching out and trying to smooth all the hurt away.

“You know,” she said softly, conversationally, except that she had her ‘brave face’ on, the one he’d always seen when she wanted to ask him a question about something she knew he didn’t want to talk about. “The last book I was reading from the castle library”—and again, he couldn’t help but flinch at this reminder of what he’d once had, and again, she glided a tiny, almost involuntary touch over his arm before retreating once more—“it was about a man who lost his true love. And after she died, he thought he would never love again, thought that true love only came once. Only…only he met someone, a few years later, and gradually he began to think that he had been wrong, that he actually could love again.”

Terror such as he hadn’t felt since sickly green light erupted from a fairy’s double-edged gift to swallow up the only thing he’d ever selflessly loved enveloped him once again now. _I’ve lost her_. The fear and terrible anguish roared through his body with brutal force and speed, but in its wake, it left him numbed and dazed. He didn’t move at all, couldn’t summon the energy to even look away from her, could only stare at her and wish, wistfully, that he could have loved her the way she deserved. That she could have loved him just a little bit longer.

“And…” he finally made himself say when he saw her at a loss, searching for words. He wanted to beg her to love him, wanted to kneel at her feet and ask her to reconsider, but the last thing she needed was for him to make it any harder on her. He could give her this gift, could make it easy for her to leave him. He’d make sure the Queen couldn’t hurt her, make sure she was provided for, make sure she never wanted for anything. And he would stay away, would subsist solely on occasional glances across the street or from the compromised refuge of his pawnshop. Surely she wouldn’t begrudge him that small comfort. “And _was_ he wrong? In the end?”

“I don’t know.” Belle looked away, and instead of looking relieved at the opening he gave her, she looked…desolate. “I didn’t have a chance to finish the book. But I guess…I guess it’s possible to have more than one true love. I mean, look at you.”

He blinked, stared at her, wondered if she _had_ lost her mind in that cell. _Me? Find true love_ twice _? Doesn’t she remember that I’m the beast? Not just anybody falls in love with monsters._ But she was watching him with compassion he’d seen before, after she’d asked a daring personal question, after he’d mentioned his son. And his wife.

“My wife?” he asked slowly, hesitantly. That hadn’t been true love, not love at all, really, but he supposed she didn’t know that. And maybe better to let her think it had been, let her think he would be content with memories of true love in the past. He’d have to be, actually, but he certainly wouldn’t be remembering his long dead wife when he succumbed to memories of happiness and curse-breaking kisses.

“Your wife?” she repeated, and she had gone completely white, her skin almost translucent, her eyes wide and dark. “Married.” A glance downward to hands white-knuckled, and then a determined, abysmally faked smile fixed on her mouth as she looked up, not quite meeting his eyes. “You finally did find someone to break your curse for you.”

And like a contract come due, a deal completed, his requested price appeared before him with the snap of finalized magic—like waking up to see Bae’s tiny face smiling down at him as his small hand patted his cheek—all the pieces fell into place, and Rumplestiltskin understood. Joy, fierce and molten and foreign, blazed through him, incinerating all his fear and anguish in an incandescent explosion that left him luminescent.

He wanted to grab Belle and pull her to him, wanted to erase her tears with his lips, wanted to laugh out loud with the sheer, undiluted love and fondness pouring through his veins like liquid gold. But instead, he let his lips quirk upward, let his eyes gleam with more imp than man, let his mouth shape confident, elusive words to say the things he couldn’t have said otherwise. “Yes, I did fall in love. I didn’t expect to, never saw it coming at all, in fact. But she kind of snuck in when I wasn’t looking, fell right into my arms before I even realized I was beside her, made her mark on my heart before I even realized I was in danger. She never looked at me as if I were a monster, and even though I _was_ one to her, she’s still willing to entrust her life to me. She’s a mystery, really, but I wouldn’t have her any other way.”

Belle was staring at him, entranced, a maelstrom of emotions flickering in rapid succession across her wondrous, mesmerizing features. Rumplestiltskin felt his smile slide from mirthful to hopeful, and he reached out steady hands—cane leaned up against the bed, forgotten—to curl around her shoulders, edge them closer together, the bed dipping them into one another. His tone lost its mischievousness, turned somber and serious. Finally, _finally_ , he could reach up a hand and trace a line from her temple to her chin. “I drove her away because I was scared of just how deeply she’d insinuated herself into my life, but she was right when she told me I’d regret it. I’ve spent an eternity wishing I could have done things differently, and now…now I have her again, and I’m afraid again. Afraid that I won’t be enough for her. Afraid she will hate me for what I did. For what I’ve done.”

She inhaled deeply, this breath ragged not with pain but with hope. That hand she couldn’t control darted out, rested so briefly on his chest—a warm, searing touch—fell back, came back to touch his arm, retreated, then found a place on his shoulder. “You…you…you’re not in love?”

“Of course I am,” he said with a smirk that lasted only a second. “You’re the only one who could ever break my curse, Belle. But this new, dark curse brought us to a world without magic, and this…this is me without magic.”

She sagged in his arms, falling into him, her face buried in his chest, her shoulders shaking. “I-I thought…I thought that you…I thought you had fallen in love with someone else, that you didn’t want me anymore.”

“Shh.” He hugged her tightly to himself, and if he _was_ dreaming, he would use every bit of magic he still possessed—in his soul and in the enchanted articles he’d brought with him—to ensure he never woke. “I could never _not_ want you, Belle. I could never love anyone else.”

Wonderingly, she pulled back, looked up to meet his gaze, searched him for sincerity—and she found it, because he meant these words just as much as he’d meant the vow he’d snarled at the Blue Fairy, another vow that he would never break. “Rumplestiltskin,” she whispered, and her eyes flickered to his lips, but she made no move, didn’t dare court the same disaster she’d invited last time she’d kissed him.

So he kissed her. Slid his hand into her hair and brought his mouth over hers. Slowly, hesitantly, because it had been decades since he’d last kissed anyone and that had been too astonished and too short, because it had been centuries since he’d kissed his wife, and that…that had been nothing at all compared to kissing Belle.

His own breaths were none too steady when he pulled back to look at her, but he lost every breath completely when he saw that dancing, joyous fire burning in silvery-blue eyes. And then she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him, and there was nothing slow or tentative about this kiss. Her hair was unbelievably soft, curling around his fingers, ensorcelling him, and her lips were soft and warm and perfect, and her body fit perfectly in the circle of his arms, and she was holding onto him as if she were afraid he’d disappear. He almost didn’t even notice when they fell back onto the bed, too lost in her, the world spinning away from them until there was nothing but her and him, and a kiss had never felt like this, not this pure and open and overwhelming, sweeping him away so that for the first time in centuries, he forgot all about deals and plans and curses.

It was moving too fast, too much too quickly—a plethora of happiness and joyous disbelief and pure _sensation_ overwhelming him when he was not used to anything but dark and pain and _aloneness_ —and so, shaken to his very soul, he pulled away, propping himself up on an arm and looking down at Belle. She seemed a bit startled by the ferocity of the kiss, but she was smiling and happy and exultant and she didn’t untwine her arms from around his neck. He couldn’t resist leaving another kiss on her mouth, couldn’t resist checking to make certain she really had tasted as sweet as he had thought.

She laughed, a laugh that sent tremors through his whole being. At the resultant expression on his face, she blinked and then stared at him, breathless—and Rumplestiltskin didn’t even care that she was having trouble pulling in sips of air, maybe because he was having the same trouble. As he had done to her moments—years—earlier, she ghosted fingers across his features, profiling the lines and angles of his face. The intent scrutiny made him uncomfortable—he couldn’t help it, not when he’d been a monster so long and wasn’t much better now—but he swallowed his discomfort and let her fingers skim across his skin.

“Do I look better now than you remember?” he asked with a smirk, hands tightening on her lest she draw away.

“No, not better,” she whispered, spell-bound, eyes following the trail of her fingers.

He raised his eyebrows, which made her smile at the sensation against her fingertips. “Worse, then?”

Her grin was amused, and it loosened the nervous coil in his stomach. “No, not worse.”

“Then what?” he whispered.

“Just different. Different, but _you_. And you is all I want.”

He couldn’t have said whether it was awe or guilt that made him flinch, made him dip his head and kiss her again, kiss her deeply as if he could erase what he’d done, erase _who_ he was, remake himself into someone better for her. She smiled against his mouth, delighted and _happy_ , and Rumplestiltskin broke the kiss, leaned his head against hers, eyes closed, unable to look her in the eye.

“I’m sorry, Belle, so sorry. It’s my fault you were taken by—”

“Shh.” Shyly, marked by his violent reaction so long ago, she leaned up and kissed him, so brave and bold, then smiled as if proud of herself and kissed him again, and Rumplestiltskin couldn’t help but chuckle. “Don’t apologize,” she whispered, her words a skim of air against his face, taking the place of her fingers. “No more. We both made mistakes, but it doesn’t matter because we’re here now, and we’re happy, and that’s enough.”

So he kissed her again, capturing the words between them, hoping to infuse them through his body and soul and _make_ himself believe them, _make_ them true. He kissed her and held her tightly and tried to pretend it was only joy driving him and not that tiny trace of fear that this happiness was not an ever-after ending, that it was only a prologue, an interlude, and it would end all too quickly. He felt her tighten her arms around him and turn into him and kiss him back, and for a moment, he lost himself in springtime sunshine and fearless smiles and shy laughter and brave compassion.

Eventually, he pulled back, rested his brow against hers, tried to catch his breath, smiling because _she_ was smiling. For a long moment, they simply stayed like that, luxuriating in the feel of each other, accustoming themselves to the fact that their universe had suddenly been righted again after so long a time of being _wrong_ and _incomplete_.

“I’d better go,” he finally murmured. “We’re both tired, and the sheriff is already suspicious enough without finding me in your bedroom.”

A light flush painted color across her pale cheeks, the perfect contrast, and Rumplestiltskin kissed her cheek to soak in the color, then sat up and reached down to retrieve his cane.

“Rumplestiltskin!”

He paused mid-step and looked back to see Belle sitting up, illuminated in a spotlight of pure moonlight, the stars captured in the glittering of her eyes. He couldn’t say anything, not looking at such a picture, could only stare.

Belle bit her lip, then proffered a shy, hopeful smile. “I love you.”

And cane or no cane, he bent and kissed her once more, whispered the words he couldn’t force himself past years of insecurities and fears to say too loudly. “And I love you, Belle.”

Her jubilant stare followed him all the way to the door, where this time it did not shut him out but rather stayed halfway open. And as he walked down the hallway, he could scarcely feel his limp at all. Had he thought himself the most Rumplestiltskin he could be while forcing a deal with the Queen? He had been wrong. Because _now_ , now with Belle, was when he was more Rumplestiltskin than ever before.

And when he reached his room, the teacup was silent.

\---


	5. Out Of Observation

\---

Archie sat in his office and stared straight ahead, not quite sure what he should be thinking at the moment. He still held the phone in his hand, but when it began to click discordantly, he absently stirred himself into motion and settled it back in its cradle. The vague hope that hanging it up would turn the conversation that had just transpired into something he could understand was disappointed. Not that Archie had really expected it. He was used to things not making sense, used to confusion and uncertainty—but not this particular brand of confusion.

_Maybe that wasn’t really Mr. Gold_ , he tried to tell himself, but much as he tried, he couldn’t get himself to believe it. No one in town would be stupid or audacious enough to pretend to be the ruthless pawnbroker, not even the mayor.

“Dr. Hopper,” Mr. Gold had said, not even letting Archie finish his _hello_. “I require your services. I’ve recently acquired a young woman who was wrongfully locked up for the past several years. If you’d be so good as to come to my house as soon as possible, I would like you to give her an evaluation.”

“An evaluation?” Archie had repeated, mainly because it was the last thing Gold had said. He had been reeling, trying to figure out which phrase was the most surprising.

“Yes, in regards to her sanity,” Mr. Gold had snapped impatiently. _Which was the only thing_ not _surprising about the conversation_. “She’s not going back to that place, and I need proof that she’s not mentally disturbed. As soon as possible, Dr. Hopper, if you please. I will, of course, be paying you for your services. May I assume you have my address?”

And with that, he’d hung up the phone, and Archie had been left staring at the wall in front of him, wondering if maybe he was actually still asleep in his bed. Trying to figure out what was most surprising: a woman being locked up for years, Mr. Gold being the one who was apparently taking care of her; his vehement insistence that whoever this girl was, she would not be locked up again; or the invitation to the pawnbroker’s house. So far as Archie knew, no one but Mr. Gold, Moe French, and Emma Swan had ever been inside the personal home of the man who owned the town, and neither of the latter two had been invited.

Giving himself a slight shake, Archie stood. He’d come to his office early, hoping to get some paperwork done before his afternoon appointments, but the paperwork could wait. Mr. Gold’s ward couldn’t. And quite apart from his psychiatrist’s duties, Archie had to admit that he was incredibly curious. It would be interesting to see Mr. Gold in a new setting, even more intriguing to meet this young, rescued woman.

_Of course, it’s been a long time since I’ve treated a new patient_ , Archie realized, and a thrill of anxiety twisted its way up his spine as he wondered if he’d be able to help this young woman. After separating himself from the mayor, the last thing he could afford to do was anger Mr. Gold, and he didn’t need a degree to be able to tell solely from the pawnbroker’s tone that he had very inflexible expectations of Archie’s visit.

_That’s not important, though_ , he reminded himself, grabbing his notepad and slipping a pen into his vest pocket. _What’s important is the girl_.

He had just reached the door when his phone rang again. For a moment, he wavered between answering it and leaving it for the machine, but an additional moment to recover from his anxiety and confusion could only be helpful, so he stepped back to his desk.

“Hello, this is Dr. Hopper.”

“Archie?”

“Emma?” He raised his eyebrows in surprise and immediately thought of Henry. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m not sure,” Emma replied, and Archie knew she was frowning, knew there was a crease on her forehead. If there was one thing Emma wasn’t, it was hard to read. “Is there any way you could come to Gold’s place sometime today? There’s something of a…a situation here, and if it’s what I think it is, I may need you here to back me up.”

“Mr. Gold’s place,” he repeated, feeling like a small echo. “You, too?”

“Me, too?” Emma’s tone immediately sharpened. “What do you mean?”

“Mr. Gold called just a moment ago and asked me to come over and talk to a young woman. He says she’s been locked up for several years.”

“He’s awake? I haven’t seen him this morning.”

Archie’s eyes widened so drastically that he had to push his glasses back up on his nose. “You’re at his _house_?”

“Yeah, I stayed here last night.” She ignored his startled cough. “Pretty creepy place, if you ask me. Anyway, I’m surprised he called you. Did he…offer you anything? Tell you to say something specifically?”

Archie knew she had cause to doubt him, thanks to his prior involvement with Regina Mills, but still, her suspicion hurt. “Even if he had offered, I wouldn’t have accepted,” he said, quietly yet steadily. His resolve had been hard come by, but he wasn’t about to let go of it. “But, no, he didn’t. He asked me to give the young woman an evaluation.”

There was a pause, and then Emma said, “I’m sorry, Archie. I didn’t mean…I mean, well…I’m sorry. Things are just really weird right now, and I’ve never seen Gold so…intent before. Which is saying something. I just have this feeling that he’s trying to get away with something, and I can’t…well, I—”

“It’s okay,” he interrupted. “I can be there in about twenty minutes or so.”

“Okay, thanks. She’s not awake yet, at least I don’t think she is, but I’d rather not be here with just her and Gold. Oh, and do you have a file on her? Her name’s Belle French, the florist’s daughter. Gold says she used to work for him. In fact, did you know her?”

“Belle French? I didn’t even know Mr. French had a—” A perplexed frown turned down the corners of his mouth. Something shifted in his mind, and suddenly, he remembered. “Oh, yes, I do remember. She was a quiet thing, always reading. I thought she had died.”

“Really? How?”

“I don’t remember there being an official statement, just rumors, and I guess that’s pretty common with suicides.”

“And did she work for Gold?”

“I believe so. I didn’t know her well, but I remember seeing her walking toward his shop pretty often. Why, is it important?”

“Maybe.” Emma sounded a bit disconcerted for a moment, but she rallied quickly. “Thanks, Archie. Oh, I know you would anyway, but keep it quiet. Gold’s insisting that Regina’s the one who locked her up, and I’d rather she not hear about this until absolutely necessary.”

“The mayor?” Archie tried his best to ignore the fear he couldn’t completely rid himself of. He knew he’d done the right thing in standing up to Regina, but much as he tried, he couldn’t stop being afraid that she’d come back and force him once more to submit to her demands. The faint sound of crickets chirping outside his window gave him a bit of strength. “I’ll be there as quickly as possible.”

“Thanks, Archie.”

As soon as he’d hung up, Archie strode to the door—grateful he hadn’t brought Pongo with him today as he’d thought of doing—grabbed his umbrella, and slipped outside, locking the door behind him. The town was beginning to come to life, the morning sun pale and wan against the chilly sky. Archie smiled a greeting to the few people he passed, but most of his mind was focused on the mysteries before him.

Strange that he hadn’t remembered Belle French until Emma brought her up, but as he had said, he hadn’t known her well. In fact, he didn’t remember exchanging more than the most basic cordial greetings, and even now, he couldn’t quite picture her in his mind. But then, she had always been shy and withdrawn, never really talking to anyone. He felt a twinge of pity for the poor woman, so young and yet locked away for some unknown reason.

Who had started the rumor that she had died? If the mayor was the one behind her imprisonment—and he had no real reason to think she was, but still the thought persisted—then she had probably allowed it to be spread around that Belle had died, but that begged the question as to whether Moe French had known the truth or not.

Moe French.

Mr. Gold.

Storybrooke was a relatively small town, and it hadn’t been too long ago that Mr. Gold had kidnapped and beaten Moe French half to death, not nearly long enough ago for the whispers and speculation to die down. If two or more residents stopped to talk for longer than ten minutes, chances were good that Mr. Gold’s recent crime would be brought up. Only in whispers, naturally, but still a major source of gossip and rumor. The main question on people’s mind was why Mr. Gold bore such particular enmity for the florist, of all people.

_“Gold says she used to work for him.”_

_“She’s not going back to that place…”_

A number of things were beginning to make more sense now, though Archie would need to take stock of the situation himself before he could come to any conclusions. Still, it was certainly indicative of _something_ that the intensely private Mr. Gold was allowing so many people into his home. If Belle didn’t mean anything to him, he surely would have had her kept somewhere else, would have made them all meet there rather than in his own house.

For a long moment, Archie was tempted to veer down the side street that would lead him to Marco’s place. He could use a friend to discuss these things with, someone to listen and share in his confusion and astonishment. But it was only a passing notion, and Archie knew he couldn’t. Knew he _wouldn’t_. Belle French was his patient now, and he would never betray her trust—even before meeting her—by talking about her with anyone else, even his closest friend. The temptation was there, though, even just to see Marco for a moment, long enough to remind himself that he had friends and reasons to be strong and brave, long enough to calm his nervous anxiety.

He did keep walking onward, but at the sight of Mr. Gold’s imposing house, he had to pause, tighten his grip on his umbrella, imagine the sound of crickets to calm his nerves—strange how he had never realized how soothing the ordinary sound could be until Henry had pointed it out to him—and take a deep breath before he could make himself walk up to the porch and rap on the door.

Emma answered the door and gave him a tentative smile. “Good morning, Archie.”

“Good morning,” he greeted, the pleasantry emerging due more to force of habit than conscious will. Curiosity and nervousness warred within him, and his palms were moist on his umbrella. “Is Ms. French awake yet?”

“I haven’t seen her, but Gypsy just went to check on her. Gypsy Chime is the woman Gold hired to be Belle’s live-in nurse,” she added over her shoulder, leading Archie deeper inside the house of the most feared man in all of Storybrooke.

Archie would be lying if he said he didn’t stare at everything he saw, a mix of genuine interest and morbid fascination prompting him to crane his neck and try to look at everything at once. The house was large with a rambling layout and a multitude of windows, but the open hallways and rooms were filled to overflowing with objects that had to be destined for the pawnshop and though the windows were uncovered and the walls were painted in light colors, there was something that kept the sunlight from penetrating the shadows. The result was a seeming fortress that came across more as lonely than full, a dark refuge designed to add extra barriers between Gold and everyone else. _A somewhat fanciful image_ , Archie thought, but it still felt right.

“Kind of weird, huh?” Emma asked with a commiserating look.

“It suits him,” Archie said softly, and knew it was true as soon as he said it.

Emma paused, then shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Here.” She led him into a sitting room, less cramped than the other rooms Archie had glimpsed, set up with a few couches arrayed around a cold fireplace. Several full bookshelves edged the room, and Archie couldn’t help but glance over the diverse titles, interested to learn what Mr. Gold liked to read. Of everyone in town, Mr. Gold was probably the most mysterious as well as the most insular, always keeping to himself and never letting anyone in. Always brusquely polite but with that underlying edge of menace to the most courteous of his words. Always willing to smile but so coldly that it took conscious effort to recognize it as a smile at all. Always involved in any deal or event in town but always on his own.

“So how did you find Ms. French?” Archie questioned, perching gingerly on the edge of the nearest couch. He kept his umbrella laid across his lap; it gave him a place to rest his hands.

A grimace flashed across Emma’s face. “Mr. Gold. He came with blueprints of the hospital and convinced me there was something strange behind a locked door. We found a whole set of tiny, bare rooms in a grungy basement that isn’t supposed to be there, and Belle was locked in a tiny cell. I have the nurse who was guarding the place down at the station, but so far she hasn’t said anything. When I went back below, all the other prisoners—if there were any behind those doors—were gone. It’s definitely a fishy situation, but it’s even more suspicious that Gold is so involved.”

“You think he locked her up himself?” Archie blurted, shocked. In all his musings on the walk over, he hadn’t once thought that Mr. Gold was the culprit of these terrible things. Odd, perhaps, since he had just been thinking on how Gold was usually involved in anything shady, but it still didn’t fit with that strained, hoarse tone to Mr. Gold’s voice over the phone.

“I don’t know,” Emma said, disgusted with herself. She stood loosely before him, hands on her hips, her jacket already on, her sheriff’s badge glinting from her waist. “He carried her out of that cell himself and he wouldn’t leave her side and he about lost it when I suggested she stay with Mary Margaret and me. He insisted that she come here. I know what it looks like, but there’s got to be twenty or thirty years between them.”

Archie nodded slowly. He still couldn’t picture Belle as anything more than a vague image, but he thought Emma’s lower estimate was probably correct. “And Ms. French? How is she? How does she feel?”

With a heavy sigh, Emma threw herself into the couch across from him and covered her face with her hands, her voice tired and muffled. “Aside from whatever they were doping her up with, she seems remarkably aware. The doctor is going to see her again this afternoon, but he says there’s the chance she might have a build-up of narcotics, and if so, they’re going to have to wean her off them. She’s tired and afraid, but…but she’s pretty strong.”

“And how does she feel about Mr. Gold?” Archie asked again, patiently, quietly. This wasn’t his office and Emma wasn’t a patient, but going off the frustration evident in her body language and tone, he knew she needed to vent before she exploded.

“Oh, she definitely knows him. And after he burst into her cell and scooped her up to carry her to freedom, she obviously thinks he hung the moon and stars.” She dropped her hands and leveled a piercing stare at Archie. “How did Gold get his limp?”

Archie blinked. “His limp? I don’t know. He’s had it for as long as I can remember.”

“Really?” Emma sat up, energy suddenly frothing around her. “Because Belle didn’t seem to know he had one. She asked what had happened to his leg.”

Despite himself, Archie frowned. “That’s…strange. I’m sure he had a limp before she die—disappeared.”

The sound of someone descending the stairs forestalled whatever Emma, eyes narrowed, was about to say. Archie stood and turned toward the doorway to see Gypsy—whom he knew from several Miner’s Days’ events—leading a petite woman with long dark hair down the staircase. As soon as Archie caught sight of Belle French, he remembered her abruptly, and was surprised that he hadn’t been able to immediately recall what she looked like earlier. Her face was certainly memorable; everyone had known she was beautiful—in fact, it had been a main topic of conversation whenever she was brought up. _So pretty, but a little bit odd. Can’t understand why a beautiful girl like her spends her time shut up reading all the time. Strange girl, even if she is pretty—she works for Mr. Gold, you know_. Yes, it was all coming back to him now.

Belle, wearing a blue dress that fell to mid-calf and hung just a bit loosely on her, walked carefully, tentatively, and she kept a hand on the banister, though Archie noted her wondering look and the way she slowly glided her fingertips along the wood. The effects of long-term sensory deprivation, he judged. She would probably delight in many small things she had been denied during her years locked up, which was far better than her being afraid of those same small things.

Her eyes darted from one thing to another; for the moment, she didn’t seem to notice Archie and Emma in the sitting room. Instead, she followed behind Gypsy, smiling at a tapestry half-unrolled in a corner by the door, running a finger over a shelf holding a few knickknacks she almost seemed to recognize, and even pausing beside a game of Scrabble sitting incongruously on a table just inside the door of the sitting room. She reached toward the stacks of tiles, removed the top one of each pile, and then let out a tiny, private smile at whatever she saw.

“Looks like we have company, Belle,” Gypsy remarked, her sharp eyes flashing a warning to Archie and the sheriff as she stood protectively between them and her charge.

Archie noticed, with interest, that Belle looked a bit worried, almost anxious, as she examined them with large blue eyes, until she glanced back to the stairs, and then she relaxed and offered them a hesitant smile. “Good morning.” Her voice was clear, her tone courteous, and Archie couldn’t help but think both were good signs.

“Good morning,” Emma said cautiously. She proffered a friendly smile. “Emma Swan, remember?”

“Of course, Sheriff,” Belle replied with a flicker in her eyes Archie couldn’t quite interpret.

“I’m Dr. Archie Hopper,” he introduced himself, standing and stepping forward. He didn’t offer his hand, mainly because he didn’t want to startle her or come across as threatening. She didn’t seem too jumpy, but she _had_ been nervous when Gypsy told her there were visitors. “Mr. Gold asked me to come and speak with you.”

“He did?” Belle studied him with renewed interest, and Archie could _feel_ Emma tense behind him. “I mean, I’m sorry—I’m Belle.”

“Yes, I don’t know that we ever met, but I do remember you.” He gave her a gentle smile that wavered a bit when her forehead creased in puzzlement.

“You…remember me?” Suddenly, her expression cleared and she regarded him serenely. “Ah, yes. Of course. I’m sorry, I…I don’t always remember everything.”

“That’s all right,” he assured her, shifting that observation to the back of his mind for later thought. He would have to find out what type of medication she’d been on. “Would you care to sit down?”

Belle bit her lip as she shook her head. “No. Actually, I wanted to make some breakfast.”

“Breakfast?” Emma asked. “I’m sure you don’t have to make anything. There’s got to be cereal or something around here.” She looked around at the clutter filling up the house and suddenly looked doubtful. “Well, maybe, anyway.”

“That’s all right,” Belle said, somewhat shyly. “I…I haven’t cooked in a long time, but I used to enjoy it. I…I want to.”

“Would you mind if I joined you?” Archie asked, not daring to look away from Belle long enough to give Emma a warning look. A patient seeking out comforting habits was a good idea, and a great first step to allaying Belle’s fears. “I’m not a great cook, but I could help a bit, I’m sure.”

“All right,” Belle agreed, but only after a pause, and Archie wondered if she was quite comfortable with so many people around.

“While you do that, I’m going to go unpack the rest of the things we got for you,” Gypsy suddenly said, seeming to read Archie’s mind. “Is that all right, Belle, or do you want me to come with you?”

“That’s all right.” The young woman flashed a quick smile at her nurse. “Thank you for everything you’re doing. Shall I make some breakfast for you?”

“Sounds great, thanks.” Gypsy bestowed a warm, compassionate smile on her charge, hoop earrings glittering in what light managed to make its way through the darkened windows, and then she glided back upstairs. With her gone, Belle suddenly seemed a bit more nervous, so Archie looked down at his umbrella and subtly slumped his shoulders, making himself smaller and less threatening. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Emma observing Belle with shrewd intensity that surely wouldn’t do anything to alleviate Belle’s anxiety. _Unfortunately, I know better than to even_ try _to get Emma to leave when she’s worried about someone_.

“So what were you thinking of making for breakfast?” Archie asked.

“I…maybe omelets? That should be somewhat simple, and I know R—Gold likes them.” Belle turned—though careful to stay slightly angled so she could keep Archie and Emma in sight at all times—and moved through the house as easily as if she’d been there a hundred times before, seeming to follow signs in the objects she glanced at with such interest.

“Gold likes omelets,” Emma repeated, and she caught Archie’s eye, made sure he understood the import of Belle’s statement.

“Do you?” Belle asked as she walked into a large, well-stocked— _and, yes, cluttered_ —kitchen. “I can make you one if you’d like. Have you had breakfast yet?”

“Well, no, but you don’t have to—”

“I don’t mind,” Belle assured her, and Archie stifled a grin at Emma’s unsettled look. “Would you like one, Dr. Hopper?”

“I have had breakfast, so I shouldn’t, but if I help, perhaps I’ll beg one off you anyway,” he said teasingly. Humor wasn’t something he was good at, but it was a very helpful tactic in getting patients to relax.

Belle smiled at him, reminding him of how beautiful she was, even thin and somewhat wan. There was a shine to her, a glow that could have been explained by her newfound freedom. _Or by something even more_. However, when she looked around at the kitchen, something very like dismay moved across her features.

“Something wrong?” Emma asked.

“Uh…no. No.” But Belle didn’t meet their eyes, and she trailed her fingers along the top of the stove and the sink as if she weren’t quite sure what to make of them.

“Eggs should be in the fridge,” Archie said kindly. “Shall I look for a pan?”

“All right,” Belle agreed uncertainly. She was remarkably agreeable, very good-tempered. If Emma hadn’t told him she’d been locked up in a dark cell, he would never have been able to guess it in these few moments’ time. Perhaps a good sign of her resilience, or perhaps a darker sign that she hadn’t yet registered all the changes happening around her. _Or perhaps she’s been cowed into being immediately compliant._ Archie shuddered at that possibility.

It was odd cooking with her. She seemed slightly startled by everything—when Archie opened the refrigerator, when Emma flicked on the stove, when they pulled out the vegetables and cheese and the cartons of milk and orange juice they found—but she always followed their lead and took whatever they handed her. She displayed no adverse reaction to being handed a knife, handled it with evident skill—with no sign that she was out of practice—as she cut up the onions, green peppers, cheese, and olives, and after Archie buttered the bottom of the pan and handed her a spatula, she very ably began to cook several omelets. After the first several moments, she relaxed and began to smile again, and Archie tugged on Emma’s arm and had her sit beside him at the table. With more space around her, Belle’s shoulder’s eased and the tightness in her smile disappeared.

“It smells delicious,” Emma observed after a moment. “You must be a much better cook than I am. Toast and cereal’s about as far as my culinary skills go, maybe some mac and cheese.”

Belle blinked at her but managed a polite smile. “Oh?”

“You used to cook often?” Emma pressed. She was trying to keep her tone conversational, but there was that ever-present intensity sparking in her, belying her casual appearance. And judging by Belle’s sidelong glance, she recognized it.

“Yes.” She didn’t talk much, Archie had noted already; she liked to stick to very simple answers. Understandable, particularly if she hadn’t had any contact with others during her…imprisonment? incarceration? lockdown? Whatever it had been, and for however long it had lasted, Archie knew conversation might be hard for her, as well as sustained interaction.

“For your father?” Emma stood up to retrieve some plates and set them on the counter beside Belle, who flinched—just the tiniest bit, almost indiscernibly—from the sheriff’s sudden proximity. Emma immediately moved back to the table and sat down, a flicker of remorse ghosting across her face.

“Yes,” Belle answered quietly, eyes fixed on the omelet she was moving to one of the plates. “For him, and for myself, and for…Gold. He likes tea in the afternoon, and sometimes it was fun to bring cookies or pastries or something.” She fell silent rather abruptly, her hair falling forward to hide her expression.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said cautiously. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right.” Belle offered yet another smile, and Archie began to feel a bit uneasy, wondering if the smiles weren’t a good sign after all; maybe they were simply a shield, a mask to hide Belle’s true emotional state. She turned back to crack a few more eggs into the pan and sprinkle the ingredients atop the yolk. “It’s just…been a long time.”

“How long?” Emma asked, and in this moment, she was wholly the impassioned sheriff.

“A…a long time,” Belle replied hesitantly, frowning at the eggs.

Emma opened her mouth, but Archie reached across the table to touch her arm, gaining her attention, and shook his head at her. Now was not the time to pressure Belle, not so soon after her release. _Best to let her get her feet under her before throwing too much at her_ , he thought and tried to communicate that sub-vocally to Emma.

“Oh, you forgot to put onions in that one,” he observed softly, rising to his feet. “Shall I get them?”

“No!” Belle shook her head. “Gold doesn’t like onions in his.”

“Oh, of course.” Archie sat back down, a calm expression fixed onto his face. He only wished Emma could have had the same reserve—she looked ready to explode, care and worry and resolve mixed together to pour potent force into her sharp eyes.

“Belle…” Emma stood but made sure to stay by the table, not boxing Belle in. “Are you sure you don’t know who had you locked up? If you saw someone or spoke to anyone…anything you can remember would help. What was done to you—”

“I never spoke to anyone,” Belle interrupted firmly. Her hands shook as she flipped the omelet, and she looked even smaller than she was. “Not once. And I only saw nurses. And one other—a woman who would come intermittently and look in on my cell. She never spoke, and her face was always shadowed. But she always smiled.”

Archie felt a clenching in his gut, a shiver race across his pebbling flesh. He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry, but he kept his eyes on Belle, kept his mind focused on her. He could do nothing about Regina, nothing except try to help one more of the victims she’d left in her wake.

“Did your father know where you were?” Emma asked bluntly, softly. “Does he know you’re alive?”

“My…father.” Belle spoke the word slowly, as if tasting it, as if it were a foreign word or a concept lost to a hazy past. “He’s here?”

Emma narrowed piercing eyes, straightened her shoulders. “Yes, he was just released from the hospital not that long ago. Mr. Gold really did a number on his ribs and arm.” She paused, waited for a reaction that did not come—Belle kept her eyes on the omelet, her hair veiling her face—then softened her tone again. “If he thought what everybody else did, thought you were dead, then surely he’ll be delighted to hear you’re alive and safe now. I can call him for you, if you’d like. Let you speak to him.”

Archie studied Belle and knew, with a bit of bemused surprise, that Emma’s tactic would not work. She might think bringing in a father so recently assaulted by Mr. Gold would help disconnect the young girl from the untrustworthy pawnbroker’s clutches, but Archie saw where Belle was looking, saw her watching Mr. Gold’s omelet, remembered how she had relaxed when she looked upstairs to remind herself of Mr. Gold’s presence, and he thought on how she always said his name so simply, so familiarly, as if she had said it a thousand times before, as if it were more natural to her than her own—and he knew she would not be dissuaded from choosing Mr. Gold as the person to trust. Knew this was far more than a simple case of hero worship for her rescuer. Archie might not have known Belle very well before her disappearance, but he would have wagered his umbrella against a penny that Gold had known her _very_ well indeed.

“My father,” Belle said again, almost to herself. Then she straightened, flicked her gaze past Emma, looked to Archie. “Could I write him a letter?”

“I think that’d be a good first step,” Archie said encouragingly. It would give her time to sort out her feelings and memories and thoughts, give her the chance to practice interaction with someone who wasn’t—or hadn’t been, anyway—a stranger. _Yes, a very good idea_. He was pleased. “I can give it to him if you’d like.”

“Yes,” Belle said, at first uncertainly, then more surely. “Yes, I would like that. I’ll write it later. Will you…will you be coming back?”

“Probably,” Archie said noncommittally. “I’ll probably be coming as often as you need me to. Until you’re completely adjusted to freedom again. How do you feel now?”

A tiny smile played along Belle’s lips as her gaze moved past Archie, a secret smile that illuminated mysteries in her eyes. “I’m feeling…good.”

Archie was not surprised, when he turned to look over his shoulder, to see Mr. Gold standing in the threshold to the kitchen, dressed as impeccably imposing as always, his cane in his hand. He _was_ , however, surprised to see the answering smile hidden in the corners of the pawnbroker’s mouth.

“Good morning…Gold.” There was a peculiar emphasis to his name, and Belle smiled after she said it, as if amused by it, a smile that, again, Mr. Gold matched. Archie couldn’t help but wonder if Belle—alone out of everyone in the entire town—had been on a first name basis with the austere landlord.

“Good morning, Belle,” Mr. Gold replied with what was, for him, shocking informality. Archie had to think for a moment and try to remember if he had ever heard Mr. Gold call anyone over the age of fifteen by their first name. “You made breakfast?”

“I did. It’s…different here, but I think I’m remembering everything.”

This time, Mr. Gold didn’t respond to the humor in Belle’s reply; instead, a shadow flickered across his narrow features. “You didn’t have to do that. You don’t work for me anymore.”

Belle’s smile didn’t waver in the least as she shrugged and brought his omelet on a plate to the table. “I know. But I wanted to make breakfast.” _For you_. Belle didn’t have to say the last bit for Mr. Gold—as well as Archie and Emma—to hear it.

“Nice call inviting Archie, Gold,” Emma offered rather grudgingly. Her remark seemed to break the moment between Mr. Gold and Belle, who hurriedly turned and brought over the omelets she’d already cooked. Archie smiled gratefully at her and rose to retrieve some glasses and forks.

“Why, thank you, Sheriff,” Mr. Gold said sardonically, moving to a chair at the head of the table. “I’m sure you would have thought of it eventually.”

Emma’s eyes flashed, but Archie wasn’t sure whether it was because of the cutting rejoinder or the fact that Belle smoothly slid into the seat at Gold’s left side. Archie noticed with interest that she hadn’t put any onions in her omelet either.

Archie did his best to keep the conversation moving through their breakfast, but it was hard going when Emma picked at her food while glaring at Mr. Gold, Belle ate each small bite slowly and watched Gold out of the corner of her eye, and Mr. Gold himself ate his omelet as easily as if he were not the center of attention.

“These are delicious,” Archie finally said, deciding to stop beating around the bush. Everyone at the table—including Belle—knew what the major issue was on everyone’s mind, and there was really no sense in avoiding it. “Don’t you think so, Mr. Gold?”

The pawnbroker shot him an amused glance. “Indeed they are. Belle has always made the best omelets.”

“Dr. Hopper says he remembers me,” Belle chimed in suddenly, her eyes intent on Gold, and the pawnbroker, who had been avoiding her gaze since sitting down, looked at her with a serious expression.

“Yes, some people are…cursed…with good memories.”

Archie exchanged a confused look with Emma, but Belle nodded as if he had revealed valuable information. “Right, of course. He also says you wanted me to talk to him?”

“Dr. Hopper is a therapist, and if he can testify that you don’t belong in a cell, there will be no legal right for _anyone_ to put you there again. I had hoped you wouldn’t mind speaking to him while I visit my shop and take care of a few things.”

“Your shop?” Belle straightened in her seat. Sunlight from the window behind her cast a gleaming halo that scattered sparks through her curling hair, hiding the shadows under her eyes and highlighting her natural beauty, and Archie—sitting across from Mr. Gold—observed with interest that the pawnbroker definitely noticed the view. There was something kindled in his eyes that had never been there before, at least not that the psychiatrist had ever seen. “Could I go with you? I’d love to see your shop—again,” she added hastily, as if ignoring the memory of how long she’d been away. Not usually a good sign, but at the moment, Archie thought it might be good for her to try to temporarily forget what situation she’d just come out of.

Gold frowned at her. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “There’s a doctor coming this afternoon to check on you, and he said you’d tire easily. I’m not sure you’re well enough.”

“Please?” Belle asked, and Emma raised her eyebrows. Archie just watched with interest, severely regretting the fact that he would never get to tell anyone about the events he was witnessing. “You said it was almost spring—and you probably have the curtains nailed down again.”

Mr. Gold’s lips quirked in an amused grin he couldn’t quite hide. _Or maybe ‘_ didn’t choose’ _to hide would be more accurate, because I know he can hide anything he wants to_. “Actually, they might be,” he admitted. “If Ms. Chime says you’re well enough, then of course you can accompany me.”

“A good thing I offered to make her an omelet, then,” Belle said mischievously, dimples appearing in her cheeks. “I believe you once told me that everyone was amenable to bribes.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea?” Emma cut in before Mr. Gold could make a reply. “I thought you didn’t want Regina to know where Belle is.”

The smiles and humor and secrets dancing in their eyes—all of it was quenched immediately, Belle shrinking and looking down at her still-too-full plate and Gold casting a venomous glare in the sheriff’s direction. “Oh, I assure you, Ms. Swan, that the mayor already knows Belle is free. _And_ that she’s under my protection.” He looked back to Belle, his expression softening even though he kept his aloof mask in place. “She won’t come near you again.”

“Really?” Emma said skeptically, a good amount of curiosity bleeding through. “You just…what? Asked her to leave you alone? And she oh so politely agreed?”

“Something like that,” Gold said casually. And again, he looked back to Belle, so easily dismissing the other two at the table; it was a common occurrence, actually, Gold dismissing those he was done with as if they no longer existed, but the unusual occurrence was that he didn’t seem inclined in the least to dismiss Belle. And it was Archie’s personal—not professional, not yet—opinion that he wouldn’t have been able to even if he’d wanted to. “After you’re done speaking with Dr. Hopper, I’ll take you to the shop.”

Belle’s smile was a bit tremulous, almost brave, and Gold’s hand, lying beside his plate, stirred as if he wanted to reach out and touch her. “All right. And then we’re coming back here?”

“Of course.” Gold’s stare was intent, his eyes suddenly hooded, and Archie shivered as he saw the ruthless pawnbroker he knew shred through the softer curtain he’d been showing all morning. “We’ll always come back here, as long as you want.”

Emma tensed, but she said nothing, and Archie knew by the slump in her shoulders that she had finally accepted what Archie had already seen. There wouldn’t be any separating Belle and Mr. Gold, no rescuing her from an obsessive older man—not when she didn’t want rescue. _Or need it, really_ , Archie thought, hoping it was true.

“Would you like to talk in the sitting room?” Archie asked, leaning forward to capture Belle’s attention. She didn’t look at him, though, not until after Gold gave her a last reassuring nod, stood, and walked out of the room, hardly leaning on his cane at all. Then and only then did Belle turn to Archie and give him a tired smile.

“All right.”

“I’ll get the dishes,” Emma offered quickly when Belle picked up Gold’s plate to stack it atop her own. “It’s only fair—you cooked. And it was delicious, thank you.”

Belle studied the sheriff warily, then ducked her head. “Thank you.”

Archie let her lead him back to the sitting room and choose out where she wanted to sit—noticed that she grabbed a random book to hug to herself as if for comfort—but while she was sitting, with her back still turned to him, he made sure to bend over and look down at the Scrabble game she had passed earlier.

Beneath the tiles she had removed, like some strange form of message in a bottle, were three short words: _Just a cup._

Archie shook his head and joined Belle. _Perhaps it’s a good thing I can never tell Marco exactly what I’ve been doing this morning_ , he thought ruefully. _It’s not like he’d ever believe me anyway_.

\---


	6. Out Of The House

\---

People were different here with their bold talk and strange clothing and odd vacillating between apologetic and confrontational, standoffish and nosy, kind and abrasive. _Things_ were different here, vehicles that moved without horses and heated houses and strange clothing and odd objects she didn’t understand. Even time seemed to run differently here where lights could be turned on and off with the flick of a switch, as easily as if Rumplestiltskin were to snap his fingers.

_The only thing that hasn’t changed_ , Belle thought, _is me._

Not quite sure how to take this new world, she still felt as lost and uncertain as she had when the ogres invaded and her father regretfully told her that their people needed her to marry for supplies and soldiers. Not able to forget so easily how quickly the Queen had ruined her life, she still felt as confused and afraid as she had when accepting Rumplestiltskin’s proposed deal and walking away from everything she’d ever known. Exhausted from all the questions Dr. Hopper had asked her and the suspicions Emma had thrown at her, she still felt as tired and worn out and tentative as she had in those first days at the Dark Castle. And unable to forget the feel of Rumplestiltskin wrapping her fully and uninhibitedly in his embrace, the look in his eyes as he’d gazed down at her as if she were more magical than anything he’d ever witnessed before, she felt as happy and joyful and shyly exultant as she had that day she’d been caught in his arms or walking back into his life and seeing him flustered and trying to hide how happy he was that she’d come back to him, staring at her with such dark, sincere eyes.

He hadn’t changed either, not really. She’d thought he had, thought she’d seen worlds of difference in his eyes, but those weren’t changes inflicted by a new world. Instead, they were changes inflicted by grief and loneliness and regret and hopelessness, and last night, she had watched those storms of change obliterated in a flurry of sudden hope and… _and love,_ she thought, and had to bite back a grin despite the tiredness she was trying to conceal from Gypsy. 

_He does love me_. And this time, there was no curse to worry about, to trip them up, to stop them from sharing kisses by moonlight. He was a man, and he was Rumplestiltskin, and those two things didn’t cancel each other out, and even if it appeared people here saw him as darkly as had the people in her world, Belle knew that he was the same man she had known before. His outside might be different, but inside, he was her Rumplestiltskin, with all the danger and magic and mischief and hurt and cunning and wit and loneliness and sharp menace that entailed. Just as Mr. Gold’s house was different from Rumplestiltskin’s Dark Castle yet still contained so many of the same articles, possessions, collections, with just a few added from this world, Mr. Gold was Rumplestiltskin with just a few things added in this strange, new, magic-less world.

_And he loves me_.

She had known it already, of course, known that the kiss wouldn’t have worked if he hadn’t loved her back, that he wouldn’t have freed her—when he’d never freed any other soul—from their deal if he hadn’t felt something, that he wouldn’t have told her about his son if he didn’t carry her in his heart. She had known, but it was amazing nonetheless to hear him say it, to hear him whisper the words and caress her name, to feel him reach out for her and touch her face with such reverence and kiss her as if he wished he could take everything she was and thought and felt and give her back everything _he_ was and thought and felt.

“Belle?”

Her heart skipped a beat, hand tightening over the handkerchief she fondled, as Belle looked up at Gypsy’s quiet call. The woman she had thought was Rumplestiltskin’s True Love, who took care of her with such fierce concern, was standing in the bedroom door with a small, kind smile on her lips. “Yes?” Belle asked, and failed to conceal the breathlessness in her voice.

Something both knowing and amused flashed in deep turquoise eyes. “Sheriff Swan wants to talk to you. I told her I’d ask you if you wanted to. You don’t have to,” Gypsy added firmly, and Belle instantly wanted to apologize for every bad thing she had ever thought of the beautiful woman in those dark, horrible moments the night before, shying away from her touch and hating to accept the clothes and help Gypsy had offered and trying so hard not to cast envious glares her way.

“Oh.” Belle looked away, back out the window. It faced a tiny plot of land behind the house, a garden filled with scraggly rosebushes more bare bark than leaf or bud. The glass against her legs and side was cold, but she didn’t want to move from the windowseat, not until Rumplestiltskin returned for her. “No, that’s all right. I’ll talk to her.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling up to it?” Gypsy assessed her quickly. It was hard to hide anything from the dedicated, generous nurse. In truth, Belle was far wearier than a morning of cooking breakfast and answering somewhat invasive questions could account for, but she wasn’t about to admit it, not when doing so would mean that she couldn’t accompany Rumplestiltskin to his shop.

“I’m well,” Belle answered carefully, hating to lie, dreading the thought of always having to be careful what she said to these strange, half-shadowed versions of people from her world. “I might as well talk to her now rather than later.”

“I suppose,” Gypsy said doubtfully before turning and stepping aside.

A tight, tangled skein of yarn was flailing about in the pit of Belle’s stomach, and it condensed into stone when she saw the fair-haired sheriff step cautiously inside the room Rumplestiltskin had made for her. Belle wanted to like the sheriff—the woman had helped rescue her, after all—but she was intimidated by the fact that Rumplestiltskin was hesitant of angering this sheriff, and also… _annoyed_ …at Emma’s aspersions against Rumplestiltskin. It was irksome to be viewed as too weak and frail to make her own choices, and offensive to hear insinuations made against both herself and the man she loved. _Though Rumplestiltskin_ was _in my bedroom after dark, and we weren’t exactly playing chess_ , she couldn’t help but think, and she blushed and looked back out the window, hoping the cool air emanating from the glass would drain the pink from her cheeks.

“Belle?” Emma asked, and her tone was the most hesitant Belle had yet heard it. “I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, but—”

“No, it’s all right,” Belle said hastily, instantly ashamed of the fact that she really _didn’t_. But the woman had gone down into the Queen’s dungeon and helped Rumplestiltskin rescue her, and Belle owed her a debt for that. “Please, won’t you sit?” She gestured with her free hand—concealing Rumplestiltskin’s handkerchief in her other—to the chair sitting in front of the vanity table next to the wardrobe, a chair that matched the one that had been in her room in the Dark Castle. Not everything in this room was from her world, but most of it was, and the rest all resembled it.

Emma sat on the edge of the chair, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees, earnest and intent and determined. “How are you doing?”

Belle couldn’t help but smile wanly. “Dr. Hopper asked me that in more variations than I knew there were. I really am fine, thank you. I know I’m not quite well yet, and I know you’re afraid for my mental health, but I’ve never felt better, freer, more hopeful. I don’t feel sick, either, or tired. Much,” she added a bit guiltily, which prompted a hint of a smile from Emma.

“Okay.” Emma nodded. “I know you can’t remember much, but if you’ll testify about the conditions where you were held, we’ll be able to bring to justice the people who did this to you. I couldn’t find any other people locked up like you, but I still have a nurse in custody who might be able to tell us something. And even if the rest has been hidden…well, I’m good at finding things.”

“All right,” Belle agreed. She wasn’t quite sure what Emma meant exactly, but agreeing might help her realize Belle was perfectly happy with where she was— _and who I’m with_.

“And don’t worry about Regina—or anyone—hurting you,” Emma promised. “You’re safe now.”

“I know.” Belle smiled gently, her eyes drifting back to the rosebushes below her, her fingertip tracing curving patterns in the mist her breath made against the window. “Gold said she wouldn’t hurt me again.”

She liked his new name, she decided. It suited him. He had taken drab, everyday straw and shaped it into valuable gold that wasn’t worth nearly as much as the very hands that wove it into jewelry he turned into magic or into long strands he simply deposited in odd alleyways and random fields for the unsuspecting, needy passerby to find. He was worth more than gold, could turn even that precious metal into something more valuable, and it amused Belle to hear these people all call him by that rare substance which he made so common.

“Belle,” Emma’s voice pulled her out of her contented reverie, and Belle sighed as she turned her attention to the sheriff. Emma’s blue eyes were hard and sharp as diamonds, pointed and stubborn. Belle knew what she would say even before she opened her mouth; it was the same thing her father had tried to tell her the last day she’d seen him. “I know you trust Mr. Gold, and that you obviously know him, but…look, I’m only going to say this once and then I won’t bring it up again if you don’t want me to, but…Gold is dangerous. He’s ruthless and implacable and the only things he cares about are the things that can give him something he wants. I mean, he tried to steal a baby, for crying out loud! I don’t know how he explained it away last night, but he really did beat your father to a bloody pulp with his cane, and all for stealing a bunch of chinaware.”

Belle’s eyes narrowed and her hands clenched into thin, white fists as Emma spoke, but at that last, she gasped and let out a shaky breath. “Papa stole from Ru—Gold? He stole…chinaware? A teacup?”

Emma stared at her, taken aback. “A teacup? I don’t—there might have been—”

“He kept it,” she whispered to the window, and she was joyful and relieved and ashamed and happy and sad all at once, a chaotic, swirling mass of feelings that probably would have had Dr. Hopper looking even more confused than he had after she accidentally told him she’d been taken to her dungeon on a horse. She wasn’t sure whether to focus on the thought of Rumplestiltskin cherishing the teacup she had dropped or her father beaten and bloody after insanely trying to steal _anything_ from the dreaded and mercurial Dark One. She wondered if Papa knew Gold was Rumplestiltskin, or if he, too, had lost all his memories. _Does he remember_ me _at all?_

“Belle,” the sheriff said, almost impatiently, “if you could tell me what’s going on, maybe I could stop bothering you with advice you obviously don’t want.”

“Gold is my friend,” Belle said steadily, not looking away from the rosebushes outside. The more she looked at them, the more she thought she could glimpse a few colored buds here and there, hidden in the crooked bends of deformed branches. “He’s taken care of me for a long time, and I chose to work for him, to live here, of my own free will. He’s not the monster you think he is, and he cares for a great deal more than you know. I would trust my life to him without a doubt, and I would not regret it. I’m sorry that he hurt Papa, but if it’s what I think it is, Papa should never have tried to hurt Gold, and Gold was more upset about what he thought Papa had done to me.”

“Belle, Gold is…” Emma sighed, obviously frustrated by the whole situation. She pushed herself to her feet and paced in a short line, tall and looming and too near. Belle tensed, kept her eyes locked on the misting glass, kept her breaths even and continuous. She would not think about locked doors and glaring eyes and tight smiles and bulky men dressed in white holding her down and silver needles glinting in diffused light. _Don’t think about it! Think of Rumplestiltskin and whispered vows and happy smiles breaking through piercing facades and lips soft and insistent and_ yours _and soft hair that glints with silver against golden ambience._

Despite her best efforts, her nails left transient imprints in her palms and the handkerchief was crumpled, stark red against white palm. Mist dusted the window, faded, dusted the window, faded, dusted the window…in and out, she breathed, carefully, continuously.

“Gold knows how to manipulate people,” Emma tried again, very obviously picking and choosing her words with great care. “You’ve just been through a hugely traumatic experience, and he saved you, I get that. But if he…Belle, if he asks for anything you don’t want to give, you don’t have to. If you ever need to leave for whatever reason, you don’t have to stay here. And if you don’t want to see him again or talk to him, you don’t have to. What I’m saying is that you have choices and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Finally, Belle could look away from the window, could regard Emma with a steady, slightly curious expression. She was silent a long moment before finally saying, “I’ve never let anyone else choose my fate for me. Even though being locked up wasn’t my decision, I did make the choices that led to that cell. And I made the choices that led me here, today, choices I am content with.”

Emma let out her breath and looked away. “Okay, then. I guess…I’ll be talking to that nurse and trying to find out anything I can. If you need anything, let me know, all right?”

“All right,” Belle agreed again, though she didn’t think she would. If she needed anything, Rumplestiltskin would get it for her, probably even before she realized she needed it. _Right now, all I need is him_ , she thought with a touch of desperate impatience. It had been a very long time since she’d seen him, too long, and there were tiny nibblings at the edge of her mind like the fraying ends of an unraveling carpet, nibblings that whispered that he wasn’t really here, that he had left, that he didn’t really love her. Silly fears, silly insecurities, but she was feeling very alone and lost and adrift.

“Belle?” Gypsy peeked inside the room, flicking a concerned glance over Belle as if to make certain Emma hadn’t harmed her. “Mr. Gold is downstairs. He wants to know if you’re ready.”

Fears and insecurities and uncertainties vanished as if he’d whisked them away with a snap of his fingers, and Belle leapt to her feet, tiredness evaporating. Unconsciously, she smoothed her hair, straightened her dress, a smile springing to life fully formed on her lips.

Gypsy chuckled and held the door open for her. “He won’t leave without you, you know,” she teased.

Belle blushed and slowed her anxious steps. A little. She picked up the pace again going down the stairs, but that was surely momentum. _Or not_ , she thought with an inward smile that bloomed into a grin when Rumplestiltskin came into view. He was standing by the door, the daylight outside casting white shadows and brilliant silhouettes on all sides of him. He was a dark line with familiar angles and contours, slender and small and beautiful. Over his right arm, the ends trailing over his cane, was a long blue coat.

“Gold!” Belle said, and even if it wasn’t the name she knew was truly his, it still tasted wonderful on her tongue. It still made him look up, eyes catching abrupt and devastating fire at the sight of her. “You’re back!”

“Of course I am.” His lips quirked. “It is my house.”

“Yes, but…” Blushing, Belle looked down at her feet, then back up at him. Running through her mind were memories of a man who thought he was a monster letting her go free, trying to hide how ragged his breathing was when she walked back into his life with a basket of straw over her arm. “I mean,” she said, a dimple appearing in her cheek, “it’s good you’re back, because I need a coat.”

“Hmm,” he said with a slanted look from under straight, narrow brows. “You’re happy I’m back.”

Belle laughed. “I’m not _un_ happy.”

He laughed, too, a small, quiet laugh that was more Gold than Rumplestiltskin, and had the sound of disuse, but it made that skein of yarn tangled in Belle’s stomach waver and disappear in a burst of colored sparks that sent tingles of heat flashing all across her body, culminating in a brilliant, almost-painful flame in her heart. “Here,” he said softly, holding out the blue coat she had correctly guessed was for her.

She ran her fingertips over its soft woolen warmth, not incidentally letting her touch intersect with Rumplestiltskin’s agile, magical fingers. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed, caught by the vividness of the blue, the vividness of the sensation, the vividness of his gesture. Everything in the cell had been dim and dull and distant, but he had brought her back to stark, vibrant life, and she couldn’t help but glory in it.

“It’ll look better when you’re wearing it,” he said with a twitch to his lips, a hint of his habitual smirk. One-handed, he held the coat open and helped her slip into it. She quickly hid his wrinkled handkerchief in the coat pocket. His hand lingered an instant on her shoulder, warmer than the coat, more meaningful even than his nostalgic words, and wholly him. Conscious of Gypsy and Emma watching from the stairs, Belle didn’t sink back into him as she wanted to, just turned to face him and smiled up at him with everything she thought and felt shining from her eyes.

He saw it, all of it, she could tell, but he, too, was aware of being watched. So he stepped away from her and gestured out the door. “Shall we? You’re sure you’re well enough?”

“I am well enough,” she insisted with a pleading look to Gypsy, begging her not to reveal how tired she had been earlier, “and we shall.”

She waited only until he closed the door behind them, then instantly settled her hand in the crook of his left elbow, not quite leaning on him so as not to throw off his balance but not keeping her touch too light either. The cold air engulfed her, surrounded her, wrapped her and Rumplestiltskin in a private, chilled air no one else could enter. When she breathed out a tiny cloud of mist, she fancied that it swirled forward to join the breath Rumplestiltskin exhaled before dancing away into the heavens. The ground was strangely paved and hard beneath her feet, but her coat was warm and Rumplestiltskin was warmer beside her, and Belle had missed the cold, the chill, the frost that could pierce and touch and burrow into her. She had missed _feeling_.

“Survived the good doctor’s visit?” Rumplestiltskin asked, and she almost forgot to answer in savoring the feel of his voice rumbling through his chest, just barely discernible against the back of her hand.

“Yes,” she answered a beat late. “Why did you want me to answer all of his questions?”

“His word carries weight here, dearest. If we can get him to tell everyone that you don’t deserve to be locked up, they’ll have to work harder to take you away. It’s not enough to protect you on its own, but it’s a start.” He paused then, swallowed, looked out at the empty street they were walking down. Houses lined either side, manors, really, not quite cottages and certainly not castles, but there was no sign of anyone else around. “Was it…were you able to tell him anything?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, looking down at where her hand rested on his black sleeve, white and pale and thin against the comforting material. Impulsively, craving _touch_ , she brought up her other hand to rest on top of his sleeve too, hugging his arm to herself. He didn’t seem to mind. “I wasn’t sure how much to tell them, though. I told them I couldn’t remember very much, just the cell. And I didn’t tell them I knew the Queen was the one who locked me up; I just said there was a woman whose face was in shadow.” She bit her lip. “Should I have—”

“No, no, quite all right.” He leaned a bit into her, his right hand tightening on the head of his cane. “I’ve made sure Her Majesty won’t be coming after you, but if we were to accuse her, she might decide to break our little deal. She can’t abide losing her happy ending.”

“ _This_ …is her happy ending?” Belle looked around again at their surroundings. They were heading into what looked to be a busier part of town with this world’s version of merchant shops, but things were flat and cold and colorless—until she looked to the man beside her. He was a blaze of black coat and crimson red tie and tanned skin and brown-silver hair and dark mesmerizing eyes. Belle drank him in gratefully.

“The person she loved was brutally taken away from her,” Rumplestiltskin said, a very somber note in his voice as he stopped walking, stood there to face her more fully, tucking both his arm and her closer to his chest. “Ever since, she’s been determined to make sure no one else can be happy either. This was the most extreme she could get.”

“That’s why you hate her?” Belle examined him, studied him, learning him all over again. No pebbling of green-gold-gray scales, no eyes like expressive marble circles, no black claws that were more gentle than a butterfly’s wings when handing her a rose, no manic laugh. But the lines between his brows, the way his mouth could crimp into a sober, menacing snarl or turn up in a smirk or wilt in a sad frown—the look in his eyes when he gazed on her… _Yes, he’s the same._ And she could read him now, his regret, his concern, his raging fury.

“I didn’t like her before,” he corrected, and his eyes were like chips of obsidian. “I hate her because of you. But fear not,” his tone lightened, his mouth quirking, “she shall be dealt with. There are plans upon plans here and deals aplenty.”

Belle giggled, happy to be relieved of the tension that had sprung up so suddenly between them. She would be brave and face it, but later, not now, not on this walk at his side out in cool, fresh, _free_ air.

They began walking again, his cane’s rhythm on the ground a comforting accompaniment to the sounds of their paired footsteps. “Emma tried to warn me about you,” Belle told him when they turned onto another street that interspaced smaller houses with shops advertising all sorts of things she didn’t even try to puzzle out at the moment.

“Did she?” Rumplestiltskin was suddenly wary, tense, rigid at her side, ready for her to cast him away, hand fisting below her hold on his forearm. “I’m sure she had stories aplenty to tell about me.”

“The usual ones about you dealing in babies,” Belle admitted with a sideways glance up at his face, set so determinedly, eyes locked on something far ahead just so he could avoid looking down at her and letting her see how much he feared her leaving him, how much he wanted her to stay. He’d avoided her gaze before, too, trying to keep his back to her when he sent her away, trying to keep a mask on over his features when she’d confronted him about his fear. Rumplestiltskin made deals and spun straw into gold, but he didn’t use deceit to strike a bargain and he rarely spun falsehoods—though Belle knew enough to know that, many times, what you thought he said was not what he’d actually said—and he was not a good liar.

“I am running out of pelts,” Rumplestiltskin quipped, still staring straight ahead. “Haven’t had my caretaker around to keep up with them.”

Despite herself, she chuckled. She felt him start, still surprised that he no longer laughed alone. “She…also mentioned again that you hurt my father.”

“Ah.” They walked in silence a long moment more; in the distance, Belle could see a few people walking here and there, but her attention was fixed in eternal orbit around the man she walked beside.

“I know you had a reason,” Belle said when it became obvious Rumplestiltskin wasn’t going to speak. “She said he’d stolen from you, which doesn’t sound like Papa at all.”

“He was driven to it by Her interfering Majesty,” Rumplestiltskin sneered. “She pointed out to him the object of most value, all because she wanted a ‘conversation’ with me and couldn’t manage it until I was sitting in a cell.”

“You were caged again?” Belle blurted.

He stared at her a long moment, their steps slow and halted, taken only as they absently remembered they were supposed to be moving forward. “Only temporarily,” he finally said, and he looked straight ahead again. “Regina came by to make a trade—my property to be returned in exchange for my name.”

“She knows you remember? She didn’t know before?” Belle was a bit surprised. When she’d thought his curse had been broken by True Love’s Kiss, she’d assumed he’d been caught up in the curse because he could no longer protect himself, but now that she knew he had still been the Dark One, it seemed foolish not to expect him to have some immunity to even a world-destroying curse.

“She knows now,” he said grimly. “Not that it matters. In this world, even without magic, there is no question of who holds the most power. Regina is impulsive and instead of governing her passion to produce results, she allows resultant passion to drive her own actions. She’s dangerous but not as dangerous as someone with a little bit of foresight, cunning, and oh yes, a deal that says she has to do whatever I tell her to so long as I use the word ‘ _please_.’” There was quite a bit of malicious triumph in his voice, making it almost as high-pitched as it had been in their world, and Belle smiled to hear it again. Smiled to feel a little bit of residual fear she hadn’t realized she retained now fading away.

“Good,” Belle murmured. She hesitated, then asked very quietly, “What did Papa steal from you?”

“I thought he killed you,” he said abruptly, walking faster as if to outrun the confession. “Not here, obviously, because I didn’t even know you were in this world, but…she said your father shunned you for being contaminated by the _beast_ ”—there was so much self-loathing lathered over that phrase that Belle wanted to weep, so much remembered fury that she wanted to take him in her arms and soothe him—“that he shut you up and had you cleansed with torture and that you took fate into your own hands and leapt from the tower. I wanted to kill him, Belle, but…I had promised you your family and friends would live. And in this world, there was no promise and when he took the teacup, all I had left of you, I…he took _you_ , Belle, stole you from me!”

He fell silent as suddenly as if he’d vanished—she tightened her grip on him to prove to her inner fears that he hadn’t—and continued walking, didn’t look at her. A muscle on the side of his jaw twitched, his lips tight and white. So afraid of vulnerability, so afraid of loss, so afraid of loneliness…so resigned to it all being his.

“I’m sorry,” Belle whispered.

Rumplestiltskin stumbled to an unexpected halt, whirling so that he could face her fully. “ _You’re_ sorry? What could you possibly have done worth being sorry over?”

“I left you,” she explained simply. She brought up her hands to his face, framed his expression of startled confusion, sitting so oddly and unnaturally on his face. “I promised forever, and I meant it. Emma told me I had choices, that I could leave you, and I know she’s right. I was bound to stay with you forever—but you let me go. And now I don’t stay because of any deal or because I am afraid of ogres being released on my town again. I stay because I _want_ to. And yes, I may wish that you hadn’t punished my father for lies and foolishness, and I may wish that things had gone differently, but, Rumplestiltskin, I love you. And I am sorry for your pain, sorry that you had to go through all of that alone, sorry that I listened to someone’s manipulative advice and hurt you and abandoned you.”

“Stop. Stop, Belle.” Rumplestiltskin peered at her as if she were something alien, something wholly outside of his ken. Stared as if she would disappear any moment and he wanted to remember her for all time. “You want to stay, you say?” At her nod, a tiny grin played along the edges of his mouth, magic there waiting for him to fully unleash it. And yes, she had thought so before, but now she was sure—there was just a hint of that captured and tamed lightning crackling about him. “Then I’ll make you a deal.”

“A deal?” she repeated, and she would have been afraid except that his eyes were on fire in the sunlight with the same power they had held by moonlight and she knew him, knew he would never harm her.

“Yes. I’ll never send you away again, and in exchange, you never apologize for anything that’s happened before. Don’t be sorry for any of it. Agreed?”

“I don’t know,” she teased. “I’ve heard that making deals with Rumplestiltskin is dangerous.”

“Oh, it is,” he assured her, something hungry and dark and tender lurking in his eyes. “Once you make a deal, there’s no going back. Are you prepared to pay the price?”

“Is it forever?” she asked, and she had never flirted before, not really, not unless you counted a few shy and inexperienced attempts in the Dark Castle, but she was relatively certain they were _both_ flirting.

“Definitely,” he answered, his voice a whisper that could hypnotize her.

“Is it unbreakable?”

“Certainly.”

“Is it magical?”

“I promise it.”

He was bending his head down nearer hers, and her heart was beating rapidly, and she didn’t feel the cold anymore, only his heat, and she couldn’t think of anything else to ask, couldn’t get any more words past all the breaths bottled up in her chest and throat. So she murmured, “Deal,” and tilted her head up, causing her lips to meet his. He didn’t seem surprised because he kissed her immediately, lightly, almost invisibly, their bodies facing one another but hardly touching at all save for her hands resting so delicately on his arm and her lips finding that smile and magic hidden there in his mouth.

It was only a moment—or she thought it was, though maybe years had passed by unnoticed—and then he pulled away. A flicker of old pain and fear swarmed through her, but it was like smoke, intransient and pale and gone immediately because he didn’t push her away. They exchanged small smiles, and without another word, they began walking again.

“Speaking of forever,” Rumplestiltskin said regretfully, pointing with his chin to the people she had glimpsed ahead of them earlier. “This isn’t.” Before she had time to do more than tense, to feel her heart fluttering like a wild moth in her chest, he flashed her an innocent smile and added, “The topic I’m bringing up, that is.” And if she hadn’t been so relieved and happy and… _and yes, amused because it’s_ him _and he makes things that shouldn’t be funny amusing enough to laugh at_ —if she hadn’t still been comprehending the fact that he was back in her life and wanted her in his and _loved_ her, she would have hit him.

“What topic?” she asked, doing her best to keep her tone steady. He knew he’d made her react, but best not to let him know just _how_ worried she was that he would decide to throw her out again.

All trace of humor vanished from his face, the one that still startled her sometimes when she looked back up at him after just listening to his voice. She couldn’t decide if it was the skin or the eyes that startled her most. “As I’m sure Ms. Swan informed you, Mr. Gold is no more well thought of than Rumplestiltskin. I have a lot of enemies, and even without enemies, I am not trusted, and I am old and powerful and alone. And you, Belle, are young and beautiful and innocent and, they believe, fragile. So—”

He was so somber, so serious, so burdened, and she didn’t like seeing him sad, so even though she knew whatever he was saying was important, she couldn’t help but smile up at him brightly and interrupt him. “I love that you call me Belle.”

“What?” He blinked at her, and she giggled, let her head rest briefly against his shoulder.

“You only use ‘dearie’ for those you’re making deals with or people you dislike—”

“Which is everybody,” he interjected sardonically.

“Exactly, so I’m glad that you don’t use it on me. When you use my name…it makes me feel like I’m…I don’t know…different. Special. Special to _you_.”

“You are,” he said so softly she wondered if she had imagined it. And then he was smirking down at her, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “I only make deals for _special_ things.”

She laughed again, and thought that surely she had laughed more in the past day than she had in all the time since leaving the Dark Castle. Joy buoyed her up, lent wings to her heart and soul so that she felt as if only her hold on Rumplestiltskin’s arm kept her from scattering through the sky, mingling with the mist from their mouths. “So, they say you are old—though I’d wager they have no idea just how many centuries you’ve actually seen—and I am frail. Why does it matter? I don’t care what they say.”

“Belle.” And he was so intent, stopping, making her meet his eyes, stilling the wings trying to steal her heart away into the heavens. “If Dr. Hopper or Sheriff Swan think that I’m…taking advantage…of you, they won’t let you stay with me. They’ll take you away and probably get a restraining order—make it against the law for me to be anywhere near you. I can’t…” He took a deep breath, locked himself away behind walls he had perfected over the many centuries of being asked to deal and then being betrayed and cursed for accepting. “I lost you once already, and I won’t let it happen again. But I doubt the Queen will be kind should I find myself behind bars again. They’re not so easy to escape here.”

“So…what does that mean?” Belle wished she could take the words back, not because she didn’t want an answer, but because she wanted to hide the tremor that had ghosted through the question. She made an effort to force a teasing smile. “You already struck the deal—you can’t send me away.”

“Never,” he breathed, and it was as quiet as her heartbeat but more vehement than a shout. “But no…well, you know. No kissing. No touching. No smiles for just the two of us. No—but not forever,” he hastily assured them both. A trace of hesitation turned him suddenly more human than he’d ever seemed before. “Or…maybe forever. If that’s what you want. I _am_ a lot older than you, and I’m crippled here, no magic, no power, a multitude of enemies, and I’m just as much a monster here as I was in our world. Magic doesn’t erase that.”

“You’re not a monster,” Belle told him, not for the first time. _And probably not for the last time, either_ , she knew. Her hands tightened over his arm. “And I don’t care what you look like or how you walk or if you have magic or not. And I don’t care if we kiss. Or—” She blushed, felt the heat unfurl in her face, and bit her lip, eyes dropping to the knot in his tie. “I do, actually, but being with you is more important. I don’t want to leave you.”

He let out a breath that shook probably more than he wanted her to know and pulled her back into a steady walk. “A good thing it’s not forever,” he muttered, almost more to himself than her.

“How long will it be?” she asked curiously, maybe a bit longingly.

“Until Dr. Hopper gives you a clean bill of health—and preferably after Ms. Swan has moved back out. Which shouldn’t take long; I can’t imagine she feels very comfortable sleeping in the dragon’s lair.”

“All right,” Belle agreed. “I myself quite like the lair.”

She was looking for it, so she saw his startled smile, and she smiled too, ducking her head so that he couldn’t see it even as she knew that he would feel it radiating off her.

They didn’t say anything for a while, long enough for them to reach a well-traveled road, walking past what appeared to be an inn with glass instead of walls, giving her a view into people sitting at tables to eat food served them by a _very_ scantily dressed woman a bit younger than she was. They passed other people walking, and Belle began to notice that they all stopped and stared at her and Rumplestiltskin, gaping or confused or incredulous, whispers igniting behind them. Her hand tightened on his arm, though she did her best to keep a bit of distance between their bodies. She wanted nothing more than to nestle closer, keep her head held high and walk beside him proudly, but she couldn’t bear to be taken away from him. Couldn’t bear to have any of that loneliness and guilt and grief put back into his eyes so soon after it had been banished.

“Why are they all staring?” she questioned after a moment. If he had still been Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One fabled for his treacherous deals, she would have understood why people would stare to see a woman on his arm, but Mr. Gold was a man, an ordinary man who worked in a place of business and lived in their same city and walked down the streets at their side.

“Strangers don’t come to Storybrooke,” he said casually with a scarce shrug. “That, and they’re probably trying to figure out what I have over you that you’d walk with me in public.”

She grinned up at him impishly, suddenly overwhelmingly happy that she was here, with him, free, in the open, where cold and heat could touch her and colors could blind her and sensations could thrill her and there weren’t walls and locks and needles. “I’ll bet they’d all be shocked if they _really_ knew what you had over me.”

“I’d probably be shocked, too, if I could ever understand it entirely,” he replied. But he smiled easily and he didn’t avoid her eyes, so she let the comment pass. Truthfully, she didn’t quite understand their love either, not fully, couldn’t understand why a powerful being who could have anything he wanted, who had seen sights and wonders and terrors she could never imagine, who had met more people than she could probably comprehend, would ever find anything entrancing or appealing in her, a second-rate princess from a little town, a caretaker with dust on her nose and a problem with balancing on ladders, a scared, hurt prisoner who cried when she saw him and carried his handkerchief around in her pocket. She didn’t understand it, but she treasured it.

“Here’s the shop.” Mr. Gold gestured with his cane to a corner building, his new name on a lit sign in the front. “Not much, but I’m sure you’ll recognize most of the things inside.”

“Probably,” she agreed as he pulled the door open for her. “Dusting something for a couple months does lend itself to a certain familiarity.”

As she had expected, the interior was dark, shadows clustering around objects as if to whisper to themselves about her unexpected entrance. There were knickknacks and items and treasures everywhere she looked, stacked up in odd places, a random order to their placement that only Rumplestiltskin understood. Above her head hung several larger objects, including a small boat that looked as if it had been made for two, perfect for a romantic lake outing. It was warm inside the shop, almost too warm after the chilly outside, but Belle welcomed the sensation, and the darkness. Her cell had been kept in a constant state of _in between_ , never too cold or hot, never too dark or light, never too _anything_. Belle was coming to learn that she much preferred extremes.

“I managed to bring through a great deal of things that are important to the people here,” Rumplestiltskin explained quietly, allowing her to stand just inside the shop and take it all in. “You never know what will come in handy, and most of these things…most of them are crucial, integral to at least one person here. One day, they will help permanently end this curse.”

Her back to him, Belle allowed her lips to curve upward. _I knew it_. Rumplestiltskin might talk like he was the villain, the monster, but she had known he would be looking for a way to break this evil curse and return them all to their homes. His methods weren’t always the ones she’d choose, but he was much more altruistically minded than he wanted to believe or admit. A flicker of fear tapped at her heart, a fear that the Queen would find some way to hurt him, a fear that he wouldn’t survive breaking the curse, a fear that his all-too-human body would be too fragile against whatever was thrown at him. But she shook the fear aside, felt something inside her stiffen and strengthen, a determination to be there to help and protect him—no one else would be looking out for him, she was sure.

“I don’t remember this,” Belle finally said, moving forward to brush her hand over the stubbled feel of a windmill almost as large as a small child, the wood grain and flecking paint harsh against her fingertips. “Is it from this world?”

Rumplestiltskin didn’t say anything, not a word or a breath, and curiously, Belle looked up. All her equanimity was hurled away from her at the sheer look of terror on his face, his eyes twin voids sucking in all the light. She had seen stark emotions play themselves over his face—wonderment and love and dazed confusion and awful rage—but never this much terror, never this undiluted fear that wiped away his barriers and left him exposed and so, so vulnerable.

“Rumplestiltskin!” she half-exclaimed, half-gasped, and she was at his side instantly, her hands on his arm, on his lapels, on his shoulders, on his face, running through his hair, anything to bring him back to her, to reassure him, to wipe away that terrible fear. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He blinked, then, and suddenly the emotion was gone, locked away and hidden, banished behind impenetrable masks. Except when he turned his head to look down at her, when he met her eyes, they weren’t as impenetrable as all that. The fear was still there, lurking in the edges of his eyes, tightening the lines around his mouth, and there were cracks in his façade that showed how much it was taking to keep them in place.

“Rumplestiltskin,” she whispered, her hands frozen in place against his chest. “What’s wrong?”

“A great many things,” he said with an attempt at a small, casual shrug. “We are all cursed, you know.”

“But you—”

“Give me a moment,” he interrupted, and he was no longer trying to conceal just how shaken he had been, maybe still was. Instead, he took a step away from her, moved behind a counter, his eyes carefully avoiding hers. “Let me think on this before I decide if I should worry or not, hmm?”

Reluctantly, she gave him the suggestion of a nod and turned to look at the other items in the shop, though out of the corner of her eye, she kept careful watch of Rumplestiltskin.

Craving sensation, she trailed her fingers along the wares placed in every available space, relishing the feel of dust when for so long only smooth metal and pebbled concrete had answered her touch. As in his house, there were things here taken straight out of the Dark Castle and there were also things she could not understand, could not puzzle out when half her attention was riveted on the man behind her.

“Belle,” he said after an eternity, his voice stark and clear and tight in the silence of the shop. She turned to him immediately, worried and nervous and afraid, and yet she could not help but smile faintly at the sight of him. Standing there, his hands steepled together on the counter, his eyes intent on her, she could practically see the spinning room around her, taste the tea in her mouth, feel the aura of magic all about her, touch the clock and candelabra she had liked to play with while gathering up her nerve to speak with him.

“Belle,” he said again, and his tone was different this time, more contrived, a bit higher, and she knew this voice—she had listened to it intently as he outlined a deal to save her people, her family and friends. It was his deal-maker’s voice, his salesman’s voice, and she did not like it. Not like this, in this moment, in this place, with his walls so tightly locked that she could not see behind the glass marbles of his eyes, so black and penetrating and discerning. “If you could, would you want to forget?”

“Forget what?” she asked, proud that only the tiniest hint of her anxiety feathered her own voice.

“This”—and he made a muted flourish at himself, at the shop, at her, at the world—“all of it. This new world can make new memories for you, give you a different life. You wouldn’t have to remember wars and sacrifices and beasts and banishments and prisons. You could have a new life—would you want that?”

Panic exploded behind her eyes, sent racing trails of fire through her veins. “Don’t,” she commanded him instantly, taking three steps toward him without even being aware of it. “Don’t you dare, Rumplestiltskin. I know you want me to be safe, want to protect me, but this is _not_ the way. Don’t”—and now her voice was growing ragged, edged with the beginnings of hysteria because she might love him and adore him and need him, but she could not control him—“don’t make me forget you.”

He cocked his head, stared at her the same way he had so often, as if she were a picture he could not quite put together, a book he could not quite read, a puzzle he could not quite decipher. As if she were something foreign and alien he had never experienced or encountered before and now sought to memorize. “Why would you _want_ to remember me, Belle? Why would you not want to forget all the terrible things that have happened to you? Do you know how many potions I sold to heartbroken men and women wanting to erase every memory of the ones who caused them pain—and all of them with much less anguish to forget than I have caused you.”

“Please,” and she hated herself for begging, but she was so _afraid_. She had just found him, just gotten him back, and she _could not_ go back to a life without him. She pressed up against the counter in front of him before she realized she was moving, her hand reaching out to cover his, stilling him, bringing something sharp and intent and quiet to life in his eyes. “Please, don’t. I love you, Rumplestiltskin, and if you make me forget, then there will just be a hole in my heart, and I won’t know why. I’ll search and search, but I’ll never know why I feel empty and alone and abandoned, and I’ll be looking without knowing what I’m looking for, and there will be only solitude and loneliness for me when instead I could have _you_.”

“Some would think that a very good trade,” he said in a toneless voice, his eyes locked on her hands over his.

“Not me!” she hissed, and his eyes jerked to hers as her hands tightened painfully over his. “I decide my fate, and this is my decision! I chose you—I _choose_ you—and I don’t regret that, not at all, never. Don’t, Rumplestiltskin. You promised you wouldn’t send me away, and this is just another way of doing that! We had a deal!”

And finally, flinching as if she had struck him, he softened, the walls tumbling down, or rather cracking open enough to let her slip inside the first ramparts. He turned his hands to interweave his fingers with hers, leaning forward so close that his breath ghosted over her cheeks. “I wouldn’t, Belle. I wouldn’t make you forget. Even if you asked me to, I could not give you up in that way.” She didn’t even have time to fully sag in relief, didn’t have time to finish her smile, before he added, “But the curse would.”

Her breath caught in her throat, and he released her fingers long enough to walk around the counter and stand in front of her, reclaiming her hands. “The curse was made to have a strong sense of self-preservation. You weren’t caught in the curse, weren’t given memories—I’m not sure why, maybe because I…well, anyway—you weren’t given a pseudo-life here. But now that you’re awake, now that you’re interacting with the rest of Storybrooke, it will work to plant those false memories in your mind. There’s usually an object, a trigger mechanism; when you see it, it sparks the onrush of memories. I saw it happen in this very shop, when a once-prince looked at that windmill you pointed out.”

She couldn’t help but look over her shoulder at the windmill, couldn’t help but shudder, couldn’t help but step even closer to Rumplestiltskin, so close they might as well be embracing. “But you can stop it. Can’t you? Make it leave me as I am.”

“I’ll do what I can,” he promised unswervingly, and she was first relieved to have his vow and then scared when she realized that he hadn’t said he could succeed. At her questioning look, he swallowed. “Your curse memories will be bound up in whatever object is the trigger, usually something sentimental to either your real self or your Storybrooke self. But since you don’t have a Storybrooke self, it’ll be something you’d recognize as your real self. If I can find that, I can hide it, bind it up in a warding that will keep it from falling into your hands.”

At her hopeful smile, he relaxed slightly, seeming to bask in her happiness, and so she smiled even more brightly to give him that much more of her happiness, pull him that much further from the dark. “Then I won’t forget you?”

“No,” he said quietly, reverently, eyes drinking her in with such intensity that she could have felt frightened. Instead, she felt loved, felt protected, felt _precious_ , and that was something she hadn’t felt in a very long time. “I pray you never forget me, dearest.”

And that endearment, so alike and so different from his usual, rang like silver— _no, golden_ —music through her, resounded in her soul, and it was only with the utmost of self-control that she did not lean upward and kiss him. Instead, feeling her smile turn shy, she pursed her lips and stepped back and dropped her hands, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Rumplestiltskin’s smile was both fond and amused, that terrible fear allayed somewhat and hidden more fully, and he limped back around the counter and retrieved a pile of papers. “I just have to finish these up, make sure they’re all up to being perused by our lovely, interfering sheriff, and then we can go home again.”

She could feel him staring at her as he said the word ‘home,’ could feel his tension, but she just smiled at him and followed him and pulled herself up to sit on the counter beside him, swinging her legs gently. Rumplestiltskin appeared startled for an instant, and then he simply looked happy, and then he turned to his papers, and Belle was free to watch him as he studied the words on the pages, using a delightful-looking ink pen to make a few notations in a careful script that blended in with the rest of the text.

The fresh air outside was wonderful and exhilarating and freeing, but she liked the dark closeness of this shop too. It was still bigger than her cell had been, and its darkness was warm and nuanced and shaded and textured and layered—just like him. _And he’s here_. Belle thought she could be happy even in her cell if he were there with her, though she wouldn’t want to test that theory, of course. She hated cells, and as she had told him, she knew Rumplestiltskin was not a creature that could easily take captivity.

“There,” he said after several long moments, setting the papers aside in a careful pile. For all his flamboyance and seeming unrestraint, he had always been remarkably careful with everything in his castle. Including her. “All done.”

“Rumplestiltskin,” she began a bit timidly, feeling yet another flush stain her cheeks, her eyes nonetheless fixed on him, unable to look away. She didn’t think she would ever get used to being able to see him, able to watch the plays of hidden emotion and deep thought drift over his features, able to drink in the sight of his hands moving so capably over whatever task he set himself. Her own hand played along the countertop, testing the slickness of its surface, dancing ever nearer his own fingertips, resting so near hers like a subtle dare.

“Yes, dearest?” he prodded when she found the words drying up in her throat.

_Bravery_ , she reminded herself. She had promised herself she would reclaim the bravery she so wanted to possess, and now was as good a time as any. “I know I asked you _how long_ we wouldn’t be able to…to touch. But…I didn’t ask you when we had to _start_ …not…touching.”

And he was smirking at her, but a softer smirk than he’d ever given anyone else, the same smirk he’d used when he was amused and using it to try to cover his own confusion. _Or maybe it wasn’t always_ confusion _that he was hiding_ , she thought as he inched closer, his hand closing over hers, the other reaching up to span her cheek, fingers gently resting beneath her hair.

“Well…” He drew out the word, stepping so close she lost the ability to breathe, his eyes level with hers due to her perch on the counter. “There’s no one here now, and as I told you, the windows are mostly covered.”

“I’ll have to see to that,” she murmured breathlessly, her free hand falling on his chest, sliding under his coat to feel the textured smoothness of his shirt, his heart beating beneath her palm. “It’ll be spring and there should be light. But…later.”

“Later,” he agreed, and his lips touched hers, gently, delicately, as if still afraid she’d turn out to be a dream should he press too hard, and she returned the kiss the same way because she had those same fears. But if this was to be their last kiss for at least a week, if she was to be denied this touch and intimacy so soon after it had been granted her— _and after so_ long _of waiting for it and wanting it_ —then she wanted more than this breath-soft kiss. Rumplestiltskin apparently felt the same because in the same instant she twined her arms around his neck and pushed closer, he did the same, hand dropping from her face to wrap around her waist. He was all around her, consuming her, enveloping her, wrapped up in _her_ , and she tasted loneliness and guilt and hurt and joy and disbelief and _fear_ —so much fear, yet still he kissed her, and there was unutterable triumph in that—and all of it mingling with magic and unexpected quips and slow smiles and wondering awe and something more that could not be defined as anything other than _Rumplestiltskin_.

And finally, _finally_ , Belle was home.

\---


	7. Out Of Memories

\---

Belle sat on the other end of the couch from him, curled up against the armrest, her legs tucked up beside her, her feet—small and bare and vulnerable—just peeking out from under the blanket Gypsy had wrapped around her. Her face was down-turned, eyes intent on the book she held so carefully in her hands, her attention absorbed in the story he’d thought she’d like— _The Lord of the Rings_ , a fantasy without being a fairytale.

He wondered, as he pretended to read his own randomly chosen book, if she would enjoy the darker story. If she would see a happily-ever-after in the ending after darkness had touched and affected and changed so much of what had once been. Wondered if she would forgive Frodo, who had claimed the Ring even after his originally good intentions. Wondered what she would think of his broken state after the end of the war.

He wondered what she would say about the fact that he had not given her _The Hobbit_ first. Wondered if she would like to read here as much as she had in the Dark Castle. Wondered…wondered _everything_ about her, wanted to know everything about her, knew he would never tire of learning more about her and what she thought and felt and wondered herself, not after so long a time of an existence devoid of any hope of learning _anything_ about her ever again.

He remembered telling himself he’d be happy if he had to subsist entirely on only snatched glimpses of her from a distance, and he remembered believing it when he’d thought it. _I’ve always been rather good at making myself believe untruths_ , he thought bitterly. Because the truth was that now that he had her, he could not let her go.

The fear he’d tried to ignore, tried to pretend had no basis in reality, tried to kiss away—it was more all-consuming and overwhelming and impending than ever before.

_She could forget me_.

Rumplestiltskin didn’t think he would be able to bear it if, after seeing the happiness and love and delight shining from her eyes by moonlight and sunlight alike, in the light of day and in the dark of his shop—he didn’t think he could bear to look at her after all that and see a polite, kind stranger looking back at him. He didn’t want to go back to a world without Belle, without her courage and selflessness and forgiveness. Without her love.

With every bone in his body, every magically touched molecule, he _burned_ with the desire to protect her— _all_ of her, body and soul and _memory_. And yet…and yet what could he do? The tiny bit of magic emanating from within him, stirred with every utterance of his true name, was useless in this instance, and all of Mr. Gold’s worldly power could not keep the memories that made this Belle _his Belle_ intact and whole. He was powerless here, locked out of the world he had ruled through the power of signature and promise, trapped in this isolated pocket of the world Bae—alone and abandoned and free of magic—lived in, somewhere. Powerless, helpless, and all he could do was feel each moment with Belle trickle away from him, immeasurably precious, interminably short.

Even with the implanted memories, she might remember him, remember Mr. Gold—he had conjured up enough of a false past for her here to ensure that—but nothing he had said would make a life for her where she loved him still. Even should he risk the sheriff and cricket’s ire by trying to verbally wrap a history of friends and lovers around her name and his, he did not think the curse would support him. The creator of it he might be, but the curse had been cast with the intention of warding away happy endings, and any life with Belle had too much happiness in it for the curse to allow.

“You’re worrying again,” Belle murmured without looking up from her book.

“Am I?” he asked with a quirked brow, and he didn’t mind giving up his useless pretense of reading. Truth to tell, he wasn’t even sure what book he held in his hands.

“Yes. You always get a crease between your brows when you’re worried.” And she darted a quick sideways glance his way, her tiny smile determinedly tucked away in the corners of her mouth.

“I thought you were reading,” he observed, careful to keep his voice quiet. If Emma had had her way, she would have probably been sitting between them on the couch, but Gypsy, with a quiet smile and a wink thrown Belle’s way, had cornered the sheriff into playing a game of Scrabble on the coffee table. They were still in the room, still close, still able—in the sheriff’s case—to send suspicious, protective glances their way, but if they kept their voices low, Rumplestiltskin and Belle had a bit of privacy. Rumplestiltskin thought that perhaps a pay raise was in order for the competent nurse.

“It’s hard to concentrate when you’re staring at me,” she admitted, a gleam in her eyes highlighted by the fire Rumplestiltskin had lit even though it wasn’t really cold enough for one. Belle had always liked reading in front of a crackling fire.

“And here I thought I was being subtle.”

She stifled a tiny chuckle at his exaggeratedly innocent expression, and Rumplestiltskin felt a thrill of pure happiness—more potent, more dangerous than any crackle of magic—shoot through his veins. “I can feel when you’re watching me,” she said softly, carefully not looking at him. “It makes me feel…more alive.”

His throat was tight, his heart stuttering, but he managed to tilt his lips into the suggestion of his grin and say, “I always knew my commanding presence would come in handy.”

She laughed again, then bit her lip as Emma and Gypsy looked over at them. Rumplestiltskin met the savior’s stare with a blank expression before looking back down at his book.

Belle remained quiet after that, and soon Rumplestiltskin began to chafe a bit at the calm stillness. Mr. Gold was very good at waiting, at being still, at quiet restraint, but Rumplestiltskin was filled with too much energy to sit so motionlessly. Particularly when Belle was there, at his side, so close, so near to him that he fancied he could feel her body heat. So close and yet just out of reach.

_At least she is well_ , he reminded himself. She had not forgotten him yet and Dr. Salt had been surprised at how well she was doing that afternoon, had said, in his chatty, gregarious way, that her system seemed to have completely purged itself of the drugs given her and that though she would probably tire easily and was somewhat malnourished, she was remarkably healthy compared to what he had expected. Though he hadn’t mentioned it to her, Rumplestiltskin privately thought on their kisses, thought on the caged magic dancing beneath his skin, thought on just how much healing and purging power True Love’s Kiss held. He found he did not mind that use of his magic at all, found that he hoped her health really was due to their kisses because then it would mean that she really, truly, impossibly did love him, beast _and_ shadow of a man.

Because he wanted to see her, because he was restless, because he wanted her to laugh, Rumplestiltskin lifted his eyes from his book and rested them on her, rewarded when she shifted and shot him another sidelong glance. _She is no good at deception, my Belle_ , he thought fondly, knowing that her surreptitious way of looking at him did not escape the sheriff’s attention as she doubtless thought it did. _But then, I am not doing so well at hiding either_.

He waited another moment, then purposely looked at her again, waited for her mute shifting and quick glance. The next moments passed—too quickly, all of these moments where she was alive and breathing and _happy_ with _him_ , all of them slipping out of reach almost before he could fully savor them—with him making a game of snatching her attention away from her book. She kept her lips tucked inward, tried so hard to hide her smiles and laughter, and when Rumplestiltskin had to stifle his own chuckle at her latest blush, he realized that they were as bad as two children trying not to alert their parents to their mischief.

And judging by Emma’s somewhat incredulous stare and Gypsy’s smiles, they were about as successful as those children might be.

“How about some tea before bed?” he offered, setting aside the book—still without a clue what it was.

“I’ll help you get it.” Belle was quick to follow his example, a bit more careful in how she laid down her book, eagerly coming to her feet. She kept the blanket wrapped around herself, but he thought it was more because she liked the way it felt beneath her constantly moving fingers than because she was cold.

“Thank you,” Gypsy said, her amusement incompletely concealed behind a neutral mask. “I’d love a cup.”

“Sure,” Emma agreed in her graceless way, and yet it was worth a hint of a smile from Rumplestiltskin. She could have insisted on accompanying them and that she did not was progress of a sort.

It took all of Gold’s restraint to keep Rumplestiltskin from snatching a kiss while he and Belle danced about each other in the kitchen, the fringes of her blanket brushing against his arm, her scent wafting behind her, her eyes locked on him as he stepped forward to reach over her for the cups. He wanted to show her his teacup— _their_ teacup—but now was not the time, not while Emma and the nurse were here. Not when it had fallen silent at long last and he now had her, real and alive and breathing, to cradle instead of a cold, inanimate object.

They didn’t say much, but she had always been able to say so much with mere expressions, promising and hinting and commenting with no more than the lift of her brow or the movement of her eyes or the flicker of her lashes or the tilt of her mouth. And he…well, he had always relied overmuch on words, on dancing and tripping syllables that had brought her to his home and then driven her away. It was nice, for these transient moments, to let silence play between them, to say everything he could never make himself say aloud with only the brush of his eyes past hers.

When they brought the tea back into the sitting room, Belle accepted the cups he prepared and took them to Emma and Gypsy, on her way back gifting him with one of those secret smiles he knew would give them away to any observer and yet could not bring himself to forbid. He noticed, acutely, that when she sat on the couch again, she sat much nearer him than she had before, positioned in the middle of the couch rather than the end. For his part, when he handed her the cup of tea he had prepared in the way he knew she loved, the way he had longed to prepare a cup of tea since hearing those two awful words so long ago— _She died_ —he made sure their fingers met, savored the feel of her soft fingertips, the smoothness of her short nails, the tingle the touch sent through him.

Gypsy and Emma both commented on the tea, and Emma asked Belle a question, and Belle responded, but they were all vague, background details that meant nothing next to the reality of Belle alive.

She had been dead so long that Rumplestiltskin still could not quite comprehend the fact that she _wasn’t_. That she was here. That she was sitting right beside him. That she still smiled at him, still touched him, still said his name without fear or loathing. He did not know that he would ever fully be able to accept that she loved him, after everything he had done, everything he was. It seemed impossible, so unlike any story he’d ever heard, but he was not about to deny it.

Not when it might end at any moment.

Despite himself, he found his eyes darting over his teacup, examining every object in the room, suspiciously, angrily, afraid that that spoon or that frame or that chair would be the object that would rip Belle away from him and leave him with a stranger he would remember only through vague, cursed memories. A stranger with _her_ face and voice.

It would be better than her being dead, but it would be so, _so_ much worse than what he had now. And he was a covetous man, a man who loved to keep what was his, and _this_ , this precious treasure of her love, was more valuable than anything else he’d ever collected.

“You’re worrying again,” Belle whispered, taking a small sip of her tea. “What’s wrong?”

“Aside from our unwanted guests?” He tipped his head toward the two women bent over the Scrabble board.

“Yes.” Her lips twitched. “Aside from them.”

He was silent a moment, finishing his tea, taking an inordinate amount of time setting his cup back in the saucer and placing the saucer down on the tea tray. Finally, looking at her only out of the corner of his eye, he heard himself saying, “I don’t want you to forget me.”

“Oh.” Her voice was small, her smile submerged beneath a frown as she set her own cup beside his. The sight of their cups together was so painful, so bittersweet, that he had to squeeze his eyes shut, had to take a deep breath and remind himself that they were no longer in the Dark Castle. That she had no contract binding her to stay with him. That she could leave, could walk away, could forget him. That the only thing that remained the same was that it would still be better for her if she _did_ leave him.

“But I won’t,” Belle said, drawing his attention back to her. “We’ll find the object that will trigger the false memories and you’ll hide it somewhere I can never find it. You’re good at that—I never could find half the handkerchiefs I washed and left for you.”

He smiled, but it was a sad smile because she _remembered_ that, remembered the handkerchiefs he’d so easily misplaced—or, well, used to mop up over-spilling potions that were rather more acidic than regular water—remembered that she had given them to him. She _remembered_ and he had not been this comfortable, this much _him_ , since she had last lived with him.

“Your necklace,” he murmured, picking up his book simply to give his hands something to do other than reach out and make sure she was really there. “I…I think that’s probably the trigger. It was the only thing you brought with you when you came to the Dark Castle, and you always wore it.”

“Do…do you have it?” she asked tremulously.

“I do,” he said hoarsely. He had found it in the drawer of the room he’d made hers, found it there only weeks after waking up in Storybrooke, found it and then found himself crumpled on the floor, weak leg twisted up beneath him, trying uselessly not to cry as he’d done over the teacup on the pedestal. He’d crushed the small necklace in his hand and heard the teacup mocking him while darkness had fallen all around him. After that, he hadn’t been able to bear both the necklace and the teacup so he’d locked the necklace away, hidden it in the safe of his shop. He could still remember the thrill of fear he’d felt to see Cinderella breaking into that safe, remembered waking up with blood on his temple, stumbling to the safe, sagging in soul-deep relief when he saw that the necklace was still there.

“You do,” Belle repeated, and then she smiled up at him—a real, full, unconcealed smile that made the room explode into shimmering crystal lights, completely overwhelming the poor, shabby fire. “Then we’re safe! You have it, and you can keep it hidden, and I won’t forget you.” Her hand darted out, quick and secret, to brush over his wrist, her eyes alight and fixed on him. “We’ll be all right.”

And part of him was still afraid to lose moments and looks and touches like this, but most of him was basking in her light and smiling back at her because he couldn’t _not_ , so he found himself saying, “Yes. We’re safe. We’re all right.” Marveling over the words. Revering them.

Her smile was content now as she leaned her head against his shoulder, and she was so happy, her weight so comforting, so stabilizing, that Rumplestiltskin did not warn her that this was probably something they shouldn’t be doing with Emma Swan’s piercing gaze on them. He chose to say nothing, just let the tension ooze out of him, felt his body relaxing as it had never done before in Storybrooke, felt his thoughts slowing and calming. He just leaned back into the couch he’d never sat on before tonight, and looked down at his book to hide the way he was memorizing every sensation and storing it up for later nights and days and eternities when he needed this feeling to keep himself together.

And when she fell asleep like that, he did not move her, not even when his arm fell asleep and his leg throbbed. He just sat there and stared at words he could not read and ignored Gypsy excusing herself for the night and Emma watching him with a puzzled, reassessing stare. And when the sheriff eventually slipped away as well, he wrapped his arm around Belle and leaned his head back so he could see her face, nestled up against him as trustingly as if he had never reviled her and struck out at her, watched the firelight play over her pale, smooth skin.

And he prayed, and he trembled, and he _hoped_.

Eventually, he dozed off, tired from the events of the past couple days—the strain brought on by her rescue, magic once more swimming ethereally through his blood, and the night before when he’d been much too _alive_ and disbelieving to snatch any sleep—and he was comforted when he did not dream. No visions of a past caretaker preparing his tea so carefully with curious looks to the chipped teacup he insisted she give him; no nightmares of a small, slender body covered with scars and stripped of her outer flesh tumbling so artlessly through the air to the far below ground. Not even dreams of the woman sleeping at his side, because what dream, what vision, what images born from imagination and desire, could ever equal the solid _reality_ of her?

He did not dream, but Belle did, and he was roused by the sound of a quiet whimper that seared through him like white-hot iron. The flames in the fireplace had died down to simmering coals, but his eyes immediately picked out the mark of tears on Belle’s long eyelashes. She did not scream, did not stir, just let out that tiny, almost inaudible whimper.

Hurting and afraid and tormented, and it was all _his fault_ , and he almost could not even bear to touch her, almost curled in around himself in an effort to minimize all that he had done to her.

But she had no one else, and she was nestled against his side, and her fist was half-closed and resting against his leg, and _she had no one else_.

He didn’t deserve her, but he was all she had, and she was all he had—maybe all he ever would have, no matter how much he’d sacrificed to find his son—and each tear on her cheek was like the crack of a whip against his soul. So he shifted her against him, and brought up his right hand to tenderly and oh so carefully brush away that precious moisture with a knuckle. “Belle,” he murmured, softly, gently, as kindly as he knew how. “Belle, dearest.”

She woke with a gasp so quiet he saw it more than heard it, her eyes wide and unfocused, her hands jerking upward instinctively. When they encountered his side, his chest, his arm, she hesitated, slowed their movement, and then her gaze locked on him, and a soft sob emerged from her throat.

Frozen, Rumplestiltskin stared at her. He wanted to recoil, wanted to divorce himself from her as quickly as possible, before she screamed at him—screamed _because_ of him—but he could not move, not when any sudden movement from him might terrify her.

And then she let out another sob, and she threw herself on him, wrapping her arms around his neck, her face buried in the hollow of his throat, her breaths rasping and warm against his skin. Bewildered, he let her hug him—let her because it would have taken more than Maleficent’s dragon form to tear him away from her.

Soothing people was not something Rumplestiltskin, the dreaded Dark One, did, nor was it a skill Mr. Gold had ever been required to cultivate. But he had once been a father, once held a frightened boy in his arms during the long night hours and calmed him and whispered sweet platitudes he’d pretended he could promise even though he had nothing but his love to offer the son that meant more to him than anything else in the world. It had been a long time—centuries—since he had last held Bae, centuries since he’d whispered anything to him unless reiterations of his vows to empty air in castle towers and a pawnshop backroom counted, but Rumplestiltskin was able to murmur softly in Belle’s ear, able to summon up the sweet platitudes and soft whisperings needed to calm her, while he stroked her hair with a careful hand and held her close enough to hear his heartbeat moving in a comforting rhythm.

After a long moment, she pulled in a shuddering breath and words spilled from her in a generally unintelligible mass, a river of hurt given form and slurred together in a blur of syllables and stuttered sentences. “Rumplestiltskin— _she_ said”—and that on its own was enough to snap cold, ferocious steel through him—“ _she_ said—she’d hurt you—you couldn’t…and you were ordinary—you couldn’t protect yourself—all my fault! I kissed you and it was my fault she hurt you! She was”—and Belle did not seem to realize that he’d fallen completely motionless, did not slow her torrent of words, just pressed even closer to him—“she wanted to hurt you, and I didn’t know, and she said—she said—but in the dream you were hurt, you were bleeding—but you’re all right! Oh, you’re all right, you’re safe, you’re…”

“Yes,” he murmured, lied, because he was not all right, not with this river of fury licking through his veins, submerging his bones in frozen cold, coating his thoughts in molten rage and guilt. Because he was not safe, not when, if she said anything else, revealed any more of her torments and her untouched heart, he would be flying to Regina’s this very instant, confronting her with every intention of one of them never walking away from the encounter.

Belle pulled away from him, her eyes glazed over with fading pain, her mouth moving into a hesitant smile when she met his fixed gaze. “You’re safe.” And in no more than the blink of an eye, her hands went from clinging to caressing and Rumplestiltskin’s heart jumped to his throat when she tilted her head upward, moved forward. His own eyes began to flutter closed, and he instinctively moved to lean down, but he had done that before, instinctively moved to complete the kiss she offered him, and it had been the wrong time, the wrong moment, the wrong world, and now things were just as wrong.

_The sheriff. Restraining order. They’ll take her away._

Abruptly, Rumplestiltskin turned his head, bent it just enough so that he rested his forehead against hers, their lips kept carefully apart. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, wondering if the prickling on his neck was just paranoia or if they really were being watched. “I can’t, not now, not yet. Ms. Swan is only two doors down, and nosy to boot.”

“I don’t care,” Belle breathed, and the touch of her hands had changed once again, moving from caressing to soothing, reassuring, comforting. He did not know how she could say so much, mean so much, convey so much, through a simple touch. Did not know how he had gone so long without being touched by anyone—by _her_ , because no one else ever reached out to bridge the gap he so determinedly cultivated.

“I do,” he said quietly, drawing away from her once again. And he knew it was necessary, knew it was saving them, but he _hated_ it. Hated that he always took a step away when she stepped forward, hated that he recoiled when she reached to touch him, hated that he drove her away when always she tried to connect with him. One day, he knew, she would stop trying, stop stepping forward, stop reaching out. One day she would realize how hard and complicated and useless it was to love a beast when she could so much more easily and simply love an ordinary man. And she would leave.

But not this day. His hands tightened on her waist and back, his body tensing in preparation of that future day, and he forced himself to relax.

“I do care,” he told her, trying so hard to keep from ignoring his own words and warnings and bending his head to kiss her again, to taste and feel what he had never tasted and felt before, to drink in the physical contact, the emotional connection, the intangible, inarguable bond between them. “I lost you once, Belle, lost you for so long…and I can’t do it again. I can’t.”

Weakness, frailty, vulnerability—everything he had strived to divorce himself from since having to give up his son and kiss boots and weep helplessly by crude fires. Yet with her…with her, they did not seem as terrible, as dangerous, as they had then. Her strength in some strange way seemed to make him stronger.

He wondered what he gave her in return.

Belle sighed, her breath sweet and warm against his cheek, and then she hugged him, her head resting on his shoulder for a long moment that had Rumplestiltskin frozen, storing up this memory with the others he collected of her, a much more valuable collection than any other he had ever acquired. “All right,” she agreed softly. Then she lifted her head, and her lips were only a breath away from his, and they both froze there, halted in a pseudo-kiss.

And then his hands fell away from her, and she directed her gaze down to her own hands clasped in her lap, and there was a soft silence between them.

“I’m sure your bedroom is more comfortable than the couch,” Rumplestiltskin finally said, reluctantly. He didn’t want her out of his sight, out of reach, but he had been selfish too long, had thought of his own grief and loss for decades without thinking of hers continuing past a purported fall, so it was long past time for him to try to give her something back.

“Probably,” she said complacently.

“It’d better be.” He forced a note of humor into his hoarse voice. “I’d be insulted after all the work I put into it if it weren’t.”

“It is,” she assured him evenly, her eyes now locked on his, stealing away breath and voice and rationality. “It’s just…emptier.”

“Always the brave princess,” he murmured, drawing each word out, a gleam in his eye, wagging a finger in front of her nose, the movement evocative and nostalgic, “tempting the beast.”

Her grin was quick and white and startling. “I am not as brave as all that, and you are not a beast.”

Rumplestiltskin caressed her every feature with steady eyes instead of dexterous fingers. “It’s definitely sleep you need, dearest, if you truly believe those statements. You’re delusional.”

“Not this time,” she whispered, so softly he almost did not catch the words, and new resolve to be brave for her or not, he pretended he had not heard them, pretended they had not cut to the quick, pretended they did not make him weak and shaky and anguished.

With a hand in hers, he helped her stand—or perhaps she helped him stand, it was hard to tell—and they walked together upstairs. He stopped at her door, smiled down at her, and unable to help himself entirely, brushed a lock of hair off her temple. “Good night, Belle.”

“Good night, Rumplestiltskin.” She gave him a smile, then, a last gift to tide him over until the morning, and then she slipped inside. She left the door only half-closed, as she had done the night before, but Rumplestiltskin turned away. Tempting the beast was only fun until it became dangerous.

He came up short, however, when he saw Emma standing on the stairs, the reflection of the lights spilling out from Belle’s room into the hallway glinting like stars in her eyes.

_No!_

“Ms. Swan,” he said curtly, every word clipped. He moved toward her, not wanting to disturb Belle with this conversation. Emma didn’t flinch at all, even though he towered over her, standing at the head of the stairs and looking down on her. “You do realize, I should hope, that eavesdropping is an atrocious habit, particularly when you’re a guest in my home?”

“You really do care for her, don’t you?” Emma’s tone was awed, which took Rumplestiltskin aback, though he kept his face impassive.

“She’s been badly mistreated,” he asserted, “and needs care. I thought we’d already been over this.”

Emma shook her head impatiently. “No, it’s more than that. I thought…I thought she must have something you needed, or be someone you could use to your advantage—whatever that turns out to be—but…but you really do care. And she…she cares, too. I mean…her nightmares were all about—”

“How long were you watching?” he snarled, and suddenly his heart was beating much too fast as he tried to remember just how many times Belle had called him _Rumplestiltskin_ , if he had said he loved her aloud, if they had mentioned the curse. It was imperative that the savior come to believe in the curse, of course, but not like this, not from him, and not quite yet. She wasn’t ready yet to face a dragon. “Trying to make sure the harmless victim wasn’t hurt by the villain? Always the hero, eh, Ms. Swan?”

“Stop it, Gold,” Emma said, and he hated the way she was looking at him, as if she had never seen him before. “You don’t have to hide—”

“Don’t have to hide that I ‘care?’” he sneered, advancing just a hint, watching Emma retreat an equal, miniscule step. _Maybe it is time to give the savior just a bit more to think about. Throwing ambiguity into the mix always keeps things interesting_. “Don’t have to hide that I’m vulnerable, that she _matters_? Don’t have to keep my distance because any of a hundred different variables could take her away? Forgive me if I don’t believe you, Ms. Swan, but the last time I failed to hide such things, she was locked away and I was told she’d died.”

Emma’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Are you saying she was only locked away because of you?”

And there it was. The truth, spoken aloud in the voice of the vaunted white knight. The accusation that would break him should it ever come in Belle’s voice. The fact that had tormented him through two worlds, carried in the echoes of laughter from a marked teacup.

“I’m saying,” Rumplestiltskin commented softly, “that she’s free now, and she should be kept that way. No matter what it takes. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s late and I’m tired.”

He’d only managed to take a few steps toward his bedroom when Emma spoke again, the words hushed yet cutting quickly through the space between them. “Regina called me earlier. She said she’d heard about the situation and wanted to know if she could help.”

“How kind of her,” he gritted out in a voice that sounded like the darkest heart of any curse.

“Also, the nurse I arrested started talking. She confessed to having a grudge against Belle, that she’d found the space under the hospital and decided to take advantage of it. She’s not on any of the hospital employment records, and she claims the janitor we saw was only ever told to clean and never knew there was a girl locked in the cell.”

“Awfully convenient,” Rumplestiltskin remarked bitingly, and yet it was no more or less than he’d expected. Regina was far too smart and had left behind far too many scapegoats to ever pay for her crimes in a legal way. No, it would take much more than a badge, a law book, and a pair of handcuffs to take down Her Majesty, though the idea was awfully tempting, the allure of beating her at her own game.

_But at least Regina seems to have accepted that Belle is lost to her._

“You don’t believe her?” Emma asked, not sounding surprised at all.

“Do you?” Rumplestiltskin replied over his shoulder, and then he began walking away again. This time, Emma let him go.

Rumplestiltskin quietly shut his bedroom door behind him, and then he stood there in the dark, motionless, his mind moving forward in leaps and bounds, working the puzzle box this Storybrooke life had become.

Regina would be looking for revenge, payback for the ‘bargaining chip’ he had stolen from her.

Emma would be even more intent on watching his every step, trying to figure him out.

She might have heard him called Rumplestiltskin—though knowing how fanatically she explained away every other hint she’d been given, she might very well have missed it—and if she mentioned such to Henry, the Queen might not be the only one who learned that Gold knew far more than Rumplestiltskin wanted them to think he did.

The rest of the town would be intent, he was sure, on tearing Belle away from him, convincing her that Mr. Gold was a monster, not fit for a nice, beautiful young woman.

And Belle…Belle could forget him with no more than a glance at the wrong object. Tomorrow, he would have to retrieve her necklace and hide it somewhere safe, somewhere far outside his house and his shop, somewhere she would never have occasion to go. Tomorrow, he would have to sit across from her and _not_ reach out to touch her, to kiss her, to make sure she was real.

But it didn’t matter because tomorrow she would _be_ there, and that was enough to make it all worth it.

Belle was alive. Belle still loved him. And with that, suddenly things didn’t seem so bad. In fact, no matter everything else, life seemed…good.

And that…that scared him.

 ---

The next days were different from any Rumplestiltskin had ever experienced before. Aside from another brief confrontation with Regina, they were a study in happiness and light and minor inconveniences smoothed over with no more than a chuckle and a wink and a private brush of Belle’s hand over his arm and vague fears allayed with the whisper of his real name on her lips and her continued presence every morning when he woke, every day when he came back from the shop, every night when he walked past her bedroom slowly just to hear her moving, _breathing_ , within.

He could not help but be afraid—of her forgetting, of her rejecting him, of her leaving. He could not help but wonder, every moment, if she would really be there when he turned around. Because this was Storybrooke, town made from a curse, and happy endings were anathema, and Belle was happiness incarnate. But she was always there, flitting just out of arm’s reach, watching him across that enforced divide, her eyes alight and sincere and open just as they had always been, as if her stay in two dungeons had never happened.

Despite long afternoon naps—or perhaps partly because of them—she gained strength rapidly, rapidly enough to make Dr. Salt’s black eyebrows rise and to silence his normally unstoppable chatter, and Rumplestiltskin could not but smile at the sound of her in the kitchen, at the sight of her cheerfully attacking dust with buckets of water and a dust-cloth, at the feel of her hand alighting so transiently on his arm or shoulder or chest or wrist, at the taste of the food she cooked for him and served with a smile that invited him to mutely reminisce with her.

Because he had kept her locked up for too long, because he wanted to reinforce in Regina’s mind that she was under his protection, because she was lightness and goodness and beauty personified and could not be selfishly hoarded—no matter how much he wanted to—he walked with her through the town, ignoring the looks and whispers and pointed fingers, smirking when Belle so casually, so pointedly, took his arm and walked more closely than was strictly necessary. Because she was curious and ignorant of this world, she always encountered something new and wonderful to be excited about, always managed to see something worthwhile in whatever meaningless trinkets they happened to be looking at, managed to look at him with that spark there in too-blue eyes to warm him. Because she had been dead for so long, he counted every breath she took a gift, every smile a miracle, every touch an act of incomprehensible mercy.

And because he was a beast and she a beauty, that tinge of fear he couldn’t erase became a roaring, burning fire whenever she met someone else who claimed to recognize her. He could not help but watch her after the introductions, watch her speak with them, so tentatively, shyly, never completely comfortable with people that weren’t made of ink and paper and imagination, yet smiling anyway, warming and cheering and touching with no more than those beautiful, vibrant eyes. He could not help the tightness in his throat, the deadness in his heart, the weight in his stomach, as he watched her interact with others and waited, always waited, for her to look from them to him and suddenly realize exactly what he was. Realize that there was so much better out there waiting for her should she but leave him.

Every time she left the house without him, he traced her steps with his eyes and resisted the urge to grab tight hold of her, to wrap his arms around her and haul her forcibly back with him. But he never did—in fact, usually he refused to touch her at all, did his best to distance himself—because she was free, he had released her once and driven her away another time and now he could only watch her walk away and wait with stuttered breaths for her to foolishly, miraculously come back.

The day she went to see her father with the valiant savior as her escort, Rumplestiltskin knew he had lost her. Belle loved her father; it had been so evident in the way she had knelt before him in the war room of old, how close she had stood beside him, the soft look in her eye and note to her voice when she’d bid him farewell. And Maurice, well, he’d loved her too, and how could he not? He’d refused the deal—his entire tiny kingdom was at stake, the lives and futures of his people and his own self on the line, yet he’d unequivocally stated his denial and then contradictorily quieted at no more than a word from the daughter he so obviously cherished.

And Rumplestiltskin had almost killed him. And he’d nearly led to Belle’s death, hurt her so badly, abandoned her, and allowed himself to be deceived because he’d been afraid for so long that those lies would become truth.

So he said farewell to her at the door and watched her walk away, headed back to her family, and felt the home around him turn back into an empty house, cluttered with too many _things_ , cleaner now but already returning to the dark and dreary state he’d become so used to. He resisted the urge to flee to one of the higher windows and keep stalwart watch of the path to the door, refused to pace and mutter to himself, retained just enough hold on himself to keep from haltingly stumbling into the room that had so briefly been hers and just breathing in her scent.

Instead, he went into his study and he firmly closed the door behind him and he sat at his desk and he stared sightlessly at the papers arrayed before him. Deals and debts and bills and bargains, and all he could see was a smile when no one had smiled at him in decades, a laugh when no one had dared laugh with him in centuries, a touch of her hand when no one had ever wanted to reach out to him since the loss of his son, a glimmer of understanding when he’d received nothing but desperation and hatred and betrayal in more time than he could remember. He could smell roses and taste sugary tea and feel warm lips on his own and see love painted in blue and hear her lovely, accented voice saying his true, real, powerful name, imbuing it with even more meaning than any mere magic could convey.

When he heard the front door and soft footsteps and that voice he’d been remembering calling out to him and a knock at the study door, he couldn’t move, couldn’t jar himself awake and ruin this wonderful, beautiful, exquisite dream. But the door opened and she was there, and there was such a sad, wistful smile on her lips that he actually found it easy to stand and move toward her. Despite himself, not even caring to check if Emma was around, he reached out a hand to squeeze Belle’s shoulder, infinitely relieved and shocked and hopeful when she did not disappear or waver or alter.

He did not think he had ever felt so human, so vulnerable, so _broken_ as he did right then. Because he had let her go, had released her yet again, had watched her leave him, and yet here she was, come back, returned to him of her own free will, and she was the only one, the _only one_ , who’d ever come back to him, not just once but _three_ times.

And finally, for the first time, he began to think that maybe one happy ending could slip through the curse’s expansive net.

“I told you forever,” Belle told him, and there was such understanding inherent in her gaze that he wondered if she had thought these same things in her cell, wondered if she’d thought on him as he had on her, wondered if she had traced his features so wonderingly then for the same reason he clasped her arm now. The very idea that she could think of him—broken, old, cursed, crippled by so much more than a simple leg injury—almost as highly as he thought of _her_ was so incredible, so breathtaking, so revelatory that he wavered on his feet.

“You came back,” he murmured, and he fell on her, hugged her tightly, something wonderful and necessary and blissful clicking into place as her body conformed to his. “I love you.”

She smiled—he did not need to see her face to feel the smile—and clung to him with equal fervor. A tiny tremor passed through her small frame. “Yes. And I love you.” Her declaration was fierce, assertive, defensive, and he pulled back—careful to keep his hands on her upper arms—to look down at her.

“Belle?” he inquired with an arch of her brows.

Downcast, she avoided his gaze, and Rumplestiltskin gently led her to the chair he kept by several bookshelves. It was large and comfortable, and there was room to seat her on it and perch on the edge himself, cradling her hands in his.

“The visit with your father did not go well, then?” he asked, and fought down a surge of glee mixed with disappointment. A confusing mixture with misapplied ingredients—because he did not want to share her love with anyone else and yet he did not want her to have come back only because she had no other place to go.

“I missed him so much,” she admitted quietly, her eyes locked on their hands. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen him.”

“He is…different here,” Rumplestiltskin reminded her, though he had warned her before she went. A subtle attempt to dissuade her from rushing off to visit her father so soon after she’d received his joyful reply to her tentative letter.

“It’s not that,” she said, though she was a bad liar and the truth showed easily through the deception. It was never easy to look at familiarity and love and family and see a stranger looking back. But the necklace, thrumming with twinges of the curse, was safely hidden away, he reminded himself for the thousandth time, buried in a tiny spot of ground ten paces from the grave of his dagger.

“Ah, so it’s me that’s the trouble.” Rumplestiltskin thought that maybe he should have dropped her hands, moved aside, told her he understood…but he didn’t. Because he had let her go and she had come back and he did not _want_ her to go again. So he kept her hands in his and he stayed seated at her side, his knees touching hers, and waited patiently for whatever she wanted to say to him.

“I don’t understand,” Belle said, finally meeting his eyes, searching, probing, trying to see in him what everyone else did and what she never had. Rumplestiltskin sat completely motionless, his breath lodged as firmly in his throat as the stone had held Excalibur at his direction. But she did not find the monster lurking there, did not see the beast, did not turn away from the villain, only smiled at him. “I know there are…difficult…things about you, but there is so much good there too.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he said honestly. “Is he angry with you?”

Belle almost rolled her eyes, and Rumplestiltskin was reassured, relieved at this sign that she was already regaining her composure. “He is _confused_ by me and my decisions. But he is glad I am alive and free, and he trusts me to make my own decisions, and he wants to keep seeing me.”

“Oh.” Rumplestiltskin stifled a flash of jealousy, of possessiveness, and resigned himself to more days of locking himself in his study and pretending he was not about to break, already chipped, too alone and fragile to be removed from his hiding place.

“I love you,” Belle whispered again, one of her hands coming up to brush through his hair. “And I’ll come back. Always. I promise.”

“You’d better,” he told her. “Or I’ll come after you.”

Instead of drawing back in fear as anyone else in Storybrooke would have done at that threat, she smiled at him warmly and laughed so sweetly and tipped her head to rest against his shoulder. “I’ll hold you to that, then.”

Rumplestiltskin’s eyes slid shut as he basked in her glow.

And the next day, when Emma declared that she had to get back to her own place where she didn’t feel like just turning around would knock everything down like dominoes, when Gypsy asked if she could leave for the day to visit her golden-haired fireman and his reclusive, misshapen brother, Rumplestiltskin decided enough time had passed.

He decided to show Belle the teacup.

\---


	8. Out Of Necessity

\---

He thought he was safe. He thought he could bypass the curse he himself had constructed, thought he could forget his flaws and sins, thought he could ignore Regina’s own vengeful fury. The ease with which he dismissed her made rage burn inside Regina, a familiar emotion that joined the always-simmering wrath she kept for the lying, pampered Snow White. Regina had been ignored too long, dismissed by her controlling mother, soothed but not protected by her dear father, and shunted to the side in favor of dead memories by her well-loved, loveless husband. But those were days long gone, and this was _her_ happy ending, _her_ town, and _her_ rules no matter what Rumplestiltskin thought, and Regina refused to be ignored again.

The gall of the imp infuriated the Que—no, the mayor. He walked the girl down the streets of Regina’s town in full daylight, spoke her name on every street corner, and had recruited a handful of defenders for the woman he thought he loved, and with such paltry measures, he thought her safe.

Regina’s lip curled. _Love. What does he know of love?_ She curled her hand into a fist, felt the cold metal of her bespelled ring cut into her finger. Memories, like long-faded photographs, flitted through her mind, all touched with the scent of straw and horses, but she was used to them infringing on her thoughts, used to keeping her focus despite them.

It was she who had locked Belle away, she who had kept her alive, but still, there was such vast unfairness that Rumplestiltskin’s True Love, this tiny girl from a flyspeck village with conferred nobility, had come back from the ‘dead,’ while Regina knew—knew every time she woke up and suffered her first thought of every morning, the reminder that _He_ was dead—knew her own True Love was never coming back. There was no buried cell, no miraculous resurrection, no happy reunion for her.

And it was all Snow White’s fault.

Regina took a deep shuddering breath, kept her face impassive, reached out to pick up an apple—perfect rounded shape and brilliant ruby red color—inhaled its scent, grounded herself to the moment and the problem at hand.

Rumplestiltskin.

She had known for some time that he was not as much on her side as she had assumed, known for too short a time to properly prepare that he was aware of his own name and past and personal plans, and she knew as well as she knew her own name and past that he had his own reasons for everything he did. As long as those reasons and actions had coincided with hers, she hadn’t cared, but now that her imprisonment of Belle was known to him, she was certain he was planning his own meticulous, complicated revenge. No way in any world that he would let her get away with locking up the girl he’d decided to value above any other.

Regina wished she knew what made Belle so special. If she had only been able to figure out what it was about this one girl that had made the wily, heartless imp finally develop some inconvenient emotions, Regina was sure she could have found another girl with that same quality to throw at him, another attempt to take him out of the game through the oh so vaunted, oh so overrated True Love’s Kiss. But in all Belle’s time in her palace’s dungeons, in the twenty-eight years locked up beneath the hospital, Regina had never seen anything in the young girl to set her apart, nothing to make her special, no quality or magic or enthrallment that would draw the all-powerful Dark One to her and tame the maniacal, obsessive, single-minded drive contained within him.

_Not that it matters anymore_ , Regina told herself. Still holding the apple in her cupped hands, she rose from her desk and walked to the couch standing against the wall of her large office. The black and white colors all around her calmed her, quieted the maelstrom of rage and grief and loneliness that surged always within her, grounded her in stark absolutes. The only color in the office—the bowl of apples—drew her eye and further soothed her, reminding her of autumn days and a horse galloping through green fields and a shy, secret smile under the spreading boughs of an apple tree.

Rumplestiltskin had the girl under his protection and he’d locked Regina outside with a key engraved with Henry’s name. She’d replaced the picture frame as soon as he’d left, but she could still see the crack running over the glass covering Henry’s face, and a shudder rippled through her. She’d lost much, too much, more than anyone ever should, and she _would not_ lose her son—my _son!_ —too.

But neither could she allow Rumplestiltskin to be undistracted enough to turn his mind to aiding the idiotic new sheriff or Snow White and her charming, confused husband. No, she needed to give him something to think about, stage a diversion to keep him looking elsewhere while she rid herself of all the problems Emma Swan had brought with her.

She’d already started the wheels turning on a new plan, a plot that just might break him enough to ensure that he had no energy or time for attacking her and no reason to hurt Henry, but it had been three days since she’d used one of the last of her dwindling magical artifacts to set the stage for her plan. Three days since he’d come snarling into her office with malevolence unveiled in his wild eyes, a feral growl pitching his voice lower than either Rumplestiltskin or Gold had ever spoken. There had been no subtle threats or hidden warnings, not then, only blatant danger and blunt menace, all hurled at her like flaming lightning bolts, his hands gripping his cane so tightly she’d actually had a moment’s fear that he might forego magic altogether and beat her as he had Belle’s misguided father, only this time there’d be no sheriff to stop him before the end.

“It was a spell on Henry,” she’d told him coolly, if more quickly than she wanted to admit. “I put a tracking spell on him. It’d be easy for Belle to twist her ankle and I don’t trust you not to jump to conclusions. I didn’t want Henry to be somewhere I couldn’t find him should you break _his_ ankle.”

“A tracking spell,” he’d repeated, and Regina had felt hope and dread beat equally leaden and glorious in time with the pulse of her blood. Perhaps he’d kill her; perhaps he’d defeat her. Perhaps he’d finally, _finally_ , end this terrible, lonely existence; perhaps he’d end it all and leave her with no chance of ever reclaiming even a little bit of what she’d had before her mother reached out with cruel, grasping hands and ground it all to dust.

“He’s my son,” Regina had said, and why that statement should have allayed his rage and suspicion, she wasn’t quite sure, but she was glad for it nonetheless.

And she had told the truth—she _had_ put a tracking spell on Henry, and for the reason she had given Rumplestiltskin, not to mention wanting to know just how often Henry sought out the conniving sheriff all intent on stealing Regina’s life away from her.

But that wasn’t _all_ she had done.

It had been weeks since she’d seen Sidney for longer than a moment here and there, but Regina couldn’t help but think of him as she finally tore her gaze from the apple in her hands and directed it to the mirror placed so purposely and positioned so carefully on the coffee table in front of her. He had chosen to stay by her side, had willingly bound himself to her, and it wasn’t his fault he could never measure up to the man who should have been at her side forever, a man who should have been her husband and lover and companion. It wasn’t the genie’s fault he was only a pale, ghostly reflection in comparison, and he did love her, and Regina had learned to take comfort in his glass companionship, had grown accustomed to his face and voice and presence. She had not thought she would miss him, and it irritated her that she did, and so she dismissed the tiny pang of loneliness at the sight of only her own reflection in the mirror before her.

She had thought long and hard on what magical objects she would bring with her to this world, planning carefully and trying to predict what she would need. This mirror, with the ability to look anywhere she wished, had been one of the first things she had decided to take with her. Mirrors were her solace, her companion, her window to the world she was no longer a part of—hadn’t been a part of since buoyant happiness had turned so quickly to despairing dust—her tool and her weapon, her means of escape. They ceaselessly offered her reflection back to her, always, no matter how empty she felt, proof that she yet lived, that _she_ was still there. They showed her the new Regina, the darker, crueler Regina, the woman who wore dresses _He_ would have laughed at, sported hairstyles _He_ would have shaken his head at, said things _He_ would have frowned at. Proof that she was different now, that his absence had permanently affected her, that she was this way only because there was no one else at her side in the reflection looking back at her.

But magic worked strangely here, and the mirror would offer an omniscient view only once. She’d been tempted many times through the last several decades to use the mirror—most particularly the day Rumplestiltskin had left Storybrooke to retrieve a son for her—but always she’d decided against it, saving it up for something important. But now…today was the day.

It was time.

Setting the apple beside the mirror, Regina inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth. The office was too large, too empty, around her, perfect for what was about to happen. No one else was in the building; it was past closing time, late in the evening, and she had the solitude she both craved and loathed. With a delicate, tender touch, Regina reached out one elegant hand and caressed the side of the mirror, her fingers trailing across the almost-indiscernible carvings along the edge.

Magic fluttered beneath her touch, and Regina’s eyes half-closed at the feeling of the undeniable surge, its power almost forgotten in the long years without it. It was imbued magic, though, so Rumplestiltskin wouldn’t feel it unless he intentionally searched for it, and right now he was far too engaged with his girl-trinket to be worrying about what Regina was doing.

The surface of the mirror shimmered, glimmered, refracted, then split into a million shards of light that exploded from the glass to seed power just below the surface of Regina’s flesh, covering her eyes with a veneer of special sight. And then, as the surface of the mirror reverted to its original state, Regina looked down with gifted eyes and saw, not her own face staring back at her, but a blanket spread on the floor before a crackling fireplace, bookshelves and couch and decorative objects in view behind the foreground.

And there, sitting on the blanket, legs tucked under her, chocolate-copper hair cascading down her back—Belle. Looking with blue eyes flickering with reflected flames across the blanket to a man who had once been an imp.

 Rumplestiltskin.

Regina felt her lip curl back to bare her teeth in a snarl of her own. Her ally, her co-conspirator, her mentor, and yet how quickly he had abandoned her just like everyone else did. The imp had only ever once turned her away, only once refused to deal with her—though she had had her glorious revenge for that, too, dripping words like acidic poison to eat through his scale-armored flesh—only once, and yet the minute that interfering, second-rate replacement for Graham had shown up, Mr. Gold had become something more than an uncomfortable rival, had become a subtle enemy always there, waiting for her to stumble, watching with a cold smile. She had assumed it was simply because the pawnbroker saw an opportunity for a shifting of power, but now, knowing he was fully Rumplestiltskin, she knew there had to be more to it.

_And Rumplestiltskin, insane and maniacal as he might have been, always had a plan_. Regina wondered why she had never bent her mind to trying to figure out what his plan had been for giving her the most powerful curse ever created in any world.

But those were thoughts for another time, a later moment. For now, she wanted to watch, watch and savor her triumph. For all that this town was supposed to be her happy ending, those triumphs were becoming fewer and further between all the time; the sweetness of this one, however, would surely make up for that.

“The dinner was delicious,” Belle said, drawing the entirety of Regina’s attention. The mayor hardly looked at the girl, though; she’d had decades to observe the princess, after all. No, now she watched this weak shell of Rumplestiltskin, drank in every twitch of his mouth, every flick of his eyes, every gesture of expressive hands. Chances were this would be the only time she was ever able to observe him without him being aware of it, but she was confident she had chosen her moment wisely. It had been a week, after all, since he had charged in after Belle like a grossly misshapen imitation of a gallant prince, and Sidney had just today told her Swan had moved back in with the ignorant Snow White, and Dr. Whale had called to tell her the outcast nurse was out of the house too. What better time for Rumplestiltskin to try to remember whatever he might once have known about gallantry than this night?

“If I’d known you were such a good cook, I would have let you have a turn in the castle kitchens,” Belle teased the imp without any sign of fear.

“Ah, ah,” Rumplestiltskin chided, his tone so fond that Regina’s brows rose of their own accord. Without hostility or irony or condescension to mar his features, he seemed a different man entirely. Or rather, he seemed a _man_ , not just a power-twisted beast given mortal flesh in this new world. “Being _able_ to cook doesn’t equal _enjoying_ the task. You had to know there was a reason I wanted a caretaker.”

“I already guessed the reason,” Belle said quietly, and Rumplestiltskin fell silent, and if he ever looked at Regina with that much dark, stirring _emotion_ in his eyes, she would probably strike out with whatever magic was left to her while at the same time reaching for the closest weapon available. Belle only smiled and shifted a bit closer to him, her hand sliding over his, utterly fearless before the monster who’d terrorized the Enchanted Forest for centuries before Regina had taken it for her own.

“That you did,” Rumplestiltskin murmured. The look in his eyes was painful, painful enough that Regina had to look away, had to fix her black eyes on the apples, had to soak in their soothing color and reassuring scent. Apples were a constant, looking and tasting the same in both worlds, and though that one fateful apple had failed her, they were still the one thing she had managed to retain from her early life. Her _real_ life. The life that had been too tragically short before girls-turned-spies and broken promises and secrets spilled into the wrong ears had destroyed it.

Regina needed the stability the apples granted her. The look in Rumplestiltskin’s eyes was too uncomfortably close to what Regina knew would be in her own eyes should anyone innocent or pure or good look at her the way Belle was looking at him. Because much as he would choke at the comparison, Regina knew there were many similarities between herself and the old imp. Both dark and twisted and corrupted—by magic, by power, by their own choices, by whatever had happened to drive them to those choices—and the awe, the wonder, the disbelief, the tentativeness…all of it there on Rumplestiltskin’s face, all of it everything Regina had never had cause to experience because no one had looked at her that way. Not since _Him_.

Graham had been a useful diversion, a way of proving to herself that she wasn’t alone, that she was _alive_ , that she was beautiful and desirable and not invisible. And after all, the physical act meant nothing, not when she and _He_ had never shared it, never been given the chance to move beyond courtship and proposal. A physical act that separated her from bereaved bride and turned her into calculating wife and then into plotting widow and powerful Queen, one that had no purpose beyond consummation or diversion. Anything more meaningful had passed away long ago.

And anyway, Graham had never looked at her the way Belle was looking at Rumplestiltskin, not once. Only one person ever had.

But the moment passed, and Rumplestiltskin hid away the blatant vulnerability, and Regina was able to look again at these long, slow moments before her triumph. He didn’t even see it coming, not when he was so confident in his own power. She felt like laughing but didn’t, not yet, not before she was sure it would work.

“But you’re here now,” the imp told his girl-trinket, “and I know you must have questions about the curse, about where we are and how we got here.”

Belle looked away, and Regina had to smile at Rumplestiltskin’s flash of fear, of uncertainty, of doubt. “Remembering you’re a monster, old friend?” she murmured sardonically, eyes narrowing as she devoured the scene playing out before her gifted eyes. “How to explain to her who made the curse, hmm?”

“I’ve been thinking on it,” Belle admitted, her gaze fixed on the dying flames before her. “And as powerful as I know you are, as powerful as this curse must be to have brought us here…you made it, didn’t you?”

Both Regina and Rumplestiltskin stared at the girl. _Not so useless after all_ , Regina thought slowly. What a difference the lack of a locked door and a few drugs made, it seemed.

Rumplestiltskin regained his composure quickly, shrewd cunning sparking in falsely human eyes as he made a gesture that jarred with his current Storybrooke appearance. “Ah, who else, dearie? Anything can be made—and sold—for a price.”

“Don’t call me that,” Belle said. Her voice was soft but it seemed to possess a power all its own for the wince of regret that skimmed over Rumplestiltskin’s angular features. She took a deep breath, then met her beast’s eyes. “Why? Why did you make it? I know there had to be a reason.”

Regina’s breath caught in her throat. Perhaps witnessing this scene would bring her something even more than victorious glee. If the girl could get her this information, Regina might even let her live once her usefulness was over. Unconsciously, she leaned farther over the mirror, her hands now gripping the edges with a white-knuckled grip.

“There is,” Rumplestiltskin breathed, the admission so quiet it was almost covered by the crackle of the flames carried through glass. “There is a reason. And I already owe you this story.”

Belle’s eyes widened, as if he had uncovered a vast revelation, and Regina felt overpowering frustration pour through her. Silently, sternly, reaching for absent magic, she willed them to say more, to elaborate, to reveal themselves utterly before her. She was so close, so _close_ to crushing Snow White and everyone else who had turned against her and thrown her from the kingdom she had rightfully won, bought and paid for with her own body and heart and _True Love_. So close to ending the spoiled, traitorous princess’s life in a way that would make her feel all the same pain Regina herself had felt on that long ago, _cursed_ day, and she could not be swayed now. Could not allow frustrating sheriffs and vengeful imps and a girl that reminded her uncomfortably of _Him_ to stand in her way.

But instead of unveiling his plans and motives and goals, the imp merely reached out a gentle hand to brush a knuckle over Belle’s pale cheek, something akin to tenderness—or as close as he could get to an emotion like that—guiding the movement and painting his features with a thin brush. “I want to show you something,” he told his girl-trinket.

He pulled himself to his feet, offering a hand to Belle to help her once he’d stood, and Regina frowned at them. She was tempted, for a moment, to forestall or at least delay her plan, to allow the two to continue as they were just to catch whatever information Belle might be able to get the imp to spill. But it was too late now, and anyway the mirror wouldn’t work again after this. No, she’d made her decision already, made it a long time ago, really, twice over, both times dressed in white that felt like blood against her skin, staring ahead at mirrors that showed only a puppet guided by her mother’s lethal hand, dead and numb and _screaming_ , and forcing horrified, betrayed realization off her face, putting on a mask she hadn’t yet taken off, not when there was no longer anything underneath it.

_No turning back. No second-guessing. No other way._

After all, there was no cure for death.

The mirror followed Rumplestiltskin and Belle’s movements as the imp led the girl to a desk covered with papers Regina couldn’t help but eye with interest. She was relieved they didn’t leave the room, for the mirror would count that as the end of the one scene and her gifted sight would fade, leaving her staring at only her hollow reflection.

“I have something for you,” Rumplestiltskin told the girl, dropping her hand so he could pull open a drawer.

Belle tugged on his arm—carefully, not jarring his hold from his cane—until he looked at her. “I don’t need anything from you,” she asserted firmly. “I love _you_. I don’t need anything else.”

Regina sneered, jaded cynicism rearing back in disgust at the ridiculous idealism dripping from the girl’s statement. She had thought the same thing once, thought that everything would work out because _love is the most powerful magic in the world_. But she’d been taught differently, taught so very, very quickly, so very, very harshly, and soon enough, Belle would learn the same harsh, cruel, bitter lesson.

“I just want to show it to you, dearest,” Rumplestiltskin said, reaching down to pull something small and white and round from the drawer.

And a smile curved Regina’s lips in the only smile left to her—sharp and satisfied and predatory. Belle had told her nothing of Rumplestiltskin, never opening her mouth, never answering even the most mundane of questions about her cruel master. But in her sleep, when potions slipped into her food loosened her tongue, she’d murmured of a chipped teacup. It had seemed like gibberish until Regina had recruited the girl’s shell of a father. And then…oh, then that teacup had come in very handy indeed.

Standing behind the imp-turned-businessman, Belle swayed on her feet as if dizzy, her eyes squeezed shut, her hand gripping Rumplestiltskin’s arm. Rumplestiltskin was instantly solicitous, taking a step nearer her, the teacup cradled in his hand while he leaned his cane against the desk to reach out for his girl-trinket. “Belle?”

“Sorry,” she muttered, shaking her head, smiling up at the imp so feared and reviled, oblivious to the cup held in the hand hanging at his side. “I just got dizzy for a second.”

“Are you tired? Do you need to rest?”

Regina rolled her eyes, impatient and frustrated now that the moment was so close to hand. Rumplestiltskin thinking some girl was more important than their curse was inconvenient at the best of times, but his pathetic solicitousness now was just painful to sit through. “The clock’s moving now,” Regina reminded them all, though she alone heard her soft voice. “Time is of the essence.”

“I’m all right.” Belle smiled, leaned in closer, her hands resting on the imp’s chest. Clearly, subtlety wasn’t exactly her forte, or maybe she really was just the airheaded type that didn’t know the meaning of the word _finesse_. “I’m not tired. And even if I was, I wouldn’t want this night to end.”

_Amazing_ , Regina couldn’t help but think. _Rumplestiltskin really_ can _smile_. And wax poetic, apparently.

“Neither do I,” he whispered, cupping her cheek in his palm. “You touched me, Belle, in more ways than one. You marked me as your own, and I want you to know that I never forgot you. Never. Do you remember this?”

And he brought up his hand, the one holding the chipped teacup.

And Belle, bright-eyed and joyous, looked down at it.

And Regina grinned. A wide, jubilant grin.

Belle’s eyes landed on the teacup, on the chip missing from its side, and those blue eyes rolled up into her head, lashes fluttering wildly as her body went as limp as if she were the puppet-child with its strings snipped.

“ _Belle!_ ” Rumplestiltskin’s cry was anguished as he clumsily reached out to catch her, to hold her falling body, to save her before she could hit the hard floor, oblivious to the fact that he was already too late. He fumbled to catch her, dropped the teacup, and beneath her weight, his knee crumpled, sending them both toppling to the floor.

The teacup turned end over end in the air.

Hit the floor.

Shattered.

“ _Belle_!” Rumplestiltskin cried again, her head lolling in the crook of his arm, unresponsive to his desperate cries. His hand spanned the side of her face, tried to garner a reaction from her, but it was useless. The instant Belle had seen the teacup, it had all ended for him. Unlike Snow White’s prince, the curse had to do more than just supply memories to a blank slate; it had to erase and overwrite and remake existing memories, had to incorporate forced clues, had to seek a way to turn verbal history into a reality that precluded anything approximating a happy ending. With all that happening in her head, Belle wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.

“Belle,” Rumplestiltskin whispered, and Regina reached out to stroke a careful finger down his desolate form. The image of Rumplestiltskin cradling the girl to himself, desperate and so close to sobbing, was uncomfortably reminiscent of another scene she never— _always—_ thought of. Only, instead of it being her mother standing over the tragic pair, it was now herself, invisible and separate and still broken. Still flinching away from the memory of magical bonds and phantom pains and scorn on maternal features that should have held pride for her instead.

The agonizing irony was cemented when Rumplestiltskin dipped his head and brought his lips to his girl-trink—no, not a girl-trinket. Not really. Something more. Something stronger. Regina had never been able to tell for certain whether the True Love’s Kiss she had advocated on that road that no longer existed had actually worked—though she’d definitely had her suspicions from the force of Rumplestiltskin’s ensuing wrath—but now she knew. Now she was certain.

It _had_ worked. And that had scared the old, wizened imp, had terrified him, had shaken him to his very core.

But now he pressed his lips to Belle’s with such precarious hope, and there was something still and trembling and _waiting_ about him as he kept his mouth over hers, held the kiss until even he could tell it wasn’t working.

And Regina almost pitied him. Because True Love’s Kiss was a hoax, a ploy told to idealistic young maidens and chivalrous heroes just to feed their fantasies, a gimmick for bards and minstrels to earn a few extra coins. Because say what you would about curses being different from death, or sleeping curses having a different effect than a crushed heart, the fact of the matter was that Regina had loved Daniel with all of her heart and mind and body and soul and he had loved her— _he_ loved _me! he did!_ —and it hadn’t mattered a whit when she’d pressed her lips to his cold, unresponsive mouth and prayed and hoped and wept and _begged_. Hadn’t mattered at all because he’d still been dead and the powder that had once been a heart beating and thrumming and pulsing in time with her own had still stained her cloak and he had never again opened his wonderful, vibrant, enchanting eyes to look at her with so much joy and hope and reverence.

And the fact that a kiss had worked for the stupid, _murderous_ traitor of her step-daughter only served to further underscore just how much of a terrible, unfair, unhappy, _wrong_ world they had lived in. This world, with its lack of magic and its clear set of rules and laws and its enlightened way of denying all things miraculous, was surely the much better choice. At least here there were no unreal expectations of kisses, no useless fairies, no interfering imps, no flawed genies to offer choices and chances and miracles that were never, ever _enough_ to right the greatest wrong that had ever been made.

So, yes, Regina almost pitied Rumplestiltskin, awkwardly sprawled on the cold, hard floor, mask splintering and breaking and flying into a million pieces as unadulterated _fear_ and grief and anguish tore sobs from deep in his chest, low and hoarse and deep in Gold’s voice. She avoided looking at Belle, an innocent bystander who didn’t necessarily deserve the bad things that happened to her just because she’d fallen in love with the wrong person.

But at least Belle wasn’t dead. At least she’d wake up. And even if she thought Rumplestiltskin was no more than a strange fairytale and spinning straw into gold only a fanciful tale and Beauty and the Beast only an amusing movie…well, at least she was still alive. At least she still breathed. At least her heart still beat.

All in all, Regina had been merciful, though she doubted the imp—no, in this moment, in this instance, the _man_ —would appreciate it.

“It could’ve been worse, Rumple,” Regina told him, her voice dry and brittle. “You don’t have to get a whole new girl this time, not entirely.”

But Rumplestiltskin did not hear her. He did not move, just curled up over what was left of his girl, rocking her in his arms, the shattered pieces of the cup he’d valued over his own magic-imbued name scattered heedlessly beside him, watered with the tears that fell from all-too-human eyes.

“Belle,” he murmured, over and over again, as if it would bring her back, as if he had forgotten that in this world names didn’t hold power like they had in the old, flawed world. “Belle….Belle…Belle…”

And with a shriek rent from her very soul, Regina swept her hand over the surface of the mirror, infuriated when that did not rid her of the cursed sight. With another shriek, a scream, she lifted the mirror in her hands and sent it hurtling across her office. The crash it made against the wall and the tinkling as a thousand pieces of glass rained against the slick surface of her office floor masked the sound of her heart breaking _again_.

Because _Belle_ spoken in a weak, stuttering voice morphed all too easily into _Daniel_.

The glass pieces littered over the black and white floor grounded Regina. The shrieks were gone as if they’d never been, the white-hot pain ever-present inside her banked for the moment, cooled by the stark absolutes of the white and black around her. Breathing heavily, mask once more reclaimed, Regina stared at the remnants of the mirror. She knew her hands were clenched into painful fists only when she felt her ring— _His_ ring—cut into her palm.

“Checkmate, Rumple,” she whispered, caressed the words, allowed them to define her, profile her, let herself dribble into the mold and freeze that way. She was numb, hollow, brittle, but she was still here. She was _still here!_

And this was her moment of victory, the culmination of her plan, the moment she had wanted to happen when she’d used a magical amulet to switch the curse memories from a paltry necklace to the chipped porcelain. And it didn’t matter that the office was empty and the son she had raised and loved and invested herself into was probably with her new enemy and that Snow White was sneaking around with her prince. It didn’t matter at all because she had _won_!

She had won. She had. This was her happy ending, and no one was going to take it away. No one.

So even though she was in pieces inside, even though her soul was ripped bloody on the glass fragments her heart had become, she smiled.

Because this was her happy ending and happy people smiled. They did not curl up and weep and sob and wish they could go back to before. They did not break down in their empty throne roo—their offices. They did not think that all happy endings were lies and fairytales unjustly weighted against her and whisper a long-dead name hopelessly into the vacuum all around her.

They smiled. They laughed. They _enjoyed_ their happy endings.

And so she smiled. And she laughed. And she _reveled_ in this cursed happy ending.

\---


	9. Out Of Confusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was written before the second season aired, so there might be a few discrepancies, most notably in the character of Maurice/Moe. I hope they're not too distracting!

\---

Belle remembered falling, remembered a white teacup with blue accents, remembered someone catching her, murmuring her name over and over again. Before that, she remembered a cell, and a woman who watched her, and drugs that made everything go strange and dizzy. She even dimly remembered life with her father, young and free and smiling up at him when he laughed and swiped at the mud on her cheek. What she did _not_ remember was this room she had woken up in.

It was pretty and much larger than her cell had been, and sunlight draped the room in a wide swathe of golden beams falling inward from the tall window with its sheer curtains, but it seemed…empty somehow, despite the tasteful furniture and dresses hanging in the open closet and soft white blankets nestled over her form. Something was missing, and she delayed rising for a long moment as she tried to think what else the room needed.

_What am I doing?_ She was waking up in a strange bedroom she’d never seen before, and all she could think about were the decorations? Obviously something was wrong here, and for an instant, she wondered if it wasn’t her, if there hadn’t been a valid reason she had been locked away for so long.

Locked away.

But she was free now, free to do whatever she wanted, go wherever she wanted, and…and…Belle frowned. There was something else to that thought, but just like the room, it was missing something. With a slight shake of her head, she dismissed it and quietly sat up, allowing the blankets to slide off her shoulders.

There was a woman sleeping in a chair pulled up alongside her bed.

Belle froze, afraid to move, her breath catching in her throat. She didn’t recognize this woman, not that the fact surprised her, and the slack features—pretty and dark—ebony hair, and casual, colorful clothing gave her no clues. For the first time, Belle began to feel frightened. Bad enough to be in a strange place, but with strange people watching her…where was she? Could she leave? Would this white door be locked too?

Again, she quickly ran through her memories. Happy childhood, awkward teenage years, entering into adulthood with the beginnings of plans for her future, and then locked away under the ground where no one could find her. But the door had eventually opened, and lights had enveloped her, and there had been cold air outside and blue skies and…and a blue coat. She’d been taken somewhere to rest and recover, she remembered that, and she remembered her father telling her to come visit him as soon as she could, as soon as she was ready.

_Well_ , Belle decided abruptly, _I’m ready now_. This door, after all, didn’t look nearly as hard to break out of as the door to her cell had been.

She was dressed in a pretty blue dress, marred by that rumpled look always afflicting clothes that had been slept in, and barefoot too. When she spotted a pair of sandals by the doorway, she bit her lip before deciding that she could always bring them back later. Stepping on light feet, she grabbed up the shoes and slipped out the— _unlocked, it’s unlocked!_ —door as silently as possible. She couldn’t hear evidence that anyone else was around, but freedom was still a novelty to her, and she did not want to go back to the cell, did not want to be trapped somewhere again, so she raced down a flight of stairs, past dazzling glass, and to a heavy wooden door. For one instant she paused, breathless, entranced by the sight of a blue coat hanging beside a black one, but only for an instant, and then she was pulling open the door—and it opened at her touch, opened as if no such thing as locks existed—and fled out into the open.

Thought abandoned her for those first moments, caught up in the wind and scattered to the skies, because it was cold and bright and expansive and there were horizons on all sides of her, and there weren’t any walls to catch her and keep her from leaving, from moving, from breathing. Here, outside, she could run, could stretch out her arms to either side of her, could take as many running strides as she wished without crashing into another concrete barrier.

But eventually she grew tired and had to pause for breath, and with the cessation of unfettered movement, she was able to grab hold of wandering thoughts and dancing images. When she looked all about her, she was surprised to realize that she knew where she was, that she knew where to go, and even more surprised when it took her only a few minutes to find herself outside the small one-story house she could picture in her mind, like a sepia dream, a photograph captured in a single flash of light.

Only minutes.

All this time, she had been only moments away from home. All this time, it would have taken her only minutes—a sparse collection of multiple seconds—to walk from the hospital back to her home. It seemed inconceivable, completely incomprehensible, that the cell she had been buried in for so long—the cell that had seemed a world unto itself—existed in the same world, the same town, the same _life_ as this house and who it contained.

Slowly, hesitantly, a lump in her throat as if she hadn’t seen him in years, in decades, Belle walked forward. Set one foot on the pathway leading to the door, then another, and another, each one momentous and staggering—to think that she could find her own way, could take her own path, could walk all on her own.

And then her hand was trembling against the doorknob, smooth and polished against her fingertips, flitted to the doorbell three times before finally depressing the slight button, edged and almost malleable, and hearing the rhythmic ringing—the sound startled her; there hadn’t been noise or melody or songs where she had been—and she was wrapping her arms around herself because she didn’t have a blue coat anymore, and there was something so _sad_ about that, something she couldn’t quite grasp, and she was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t somehow as empty, as incomplete, as unfulfilled as that strange room she had woken up in—

And there he was. Standing in the doorway, looking down at her with shock in his eyes slowly giving way to happiness and joy.

“Papa,” she whispered, only she didn’t know why because she had always just called him _Dad_ , but it must not have mattered to him for he opened his arms and swooped her up into his wide, soft, welcoming embrace as if she had never left. “Papa, I’m home,” she whispered into his shirt, inhaling the familiar fragrance of earth and grass and chemical spray, the essence of her childhood, fingering the cotton weave between numb digits that seemed to belong to someone else.

She did not know why, but her statement and the scent combined suddenly in some horrible, chaotic way to leave a dark, spreading bruise on her mind, and she began to weep, to cry great shaking, silent sobs. Her father tightened his grip and held her up and murmured in a soothing tone words she did not understand.

“What’s happened, Belle? Are you all right? What did he do to you? Shh, it’s okay. Come on, come inside, everything’s all right. I knew this was a bad idea. Don’t worry, Belle, I won’t let him near you if you don’t want. What happened? Never mind, here, sit here.”

It seemed strange that her father already knew more about what had happened than she did, or perhaps not so strange, not if she was as messed up as they had claimed she was before shutting and locking the door she had never, not even once, been able to open. She could not quite grasp the meaning behind her father’s words, or at least nothing besides the fact that she was welcome here and he would take care of her as he had always done, and that was enough for her. So she followed his direction, and leaned into him, relying on his strength, and wondered why this all felt so wrong. Why it seemed he was too large and too tall and too…well, too much a father for what her mind automatically seemed to want to put beside her, as if one had to be ephemeral and slight and…not fatherly…to assist her in walking, in staying upright.

Strange thoughts and odd wonderings, and Belle hurriedly shoved them away because after these scarce hours of freedom, she could _not_ go back to the cell, and those thoughts seemed the sort that would lead her back to padded walls and colored pills and burning eyes outside a locked door.

Her father left her side for a terrifying moment, but he came back with both a glass of water she gulped down thirstily and his welcome embrace which she craved and shrank away from all at once. She could see a thousand questions in his eyes, and she was glad when he uttered none of them. It would have been useless to ask her anyway, when it seemed he already knew more than she did.

“Belle,” he murmured after a moment, and that at least was right. It felt right, it sounded right, and the moment of familiarity was enough to strengthen her. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t…” She bit her lip, looked down at the cup in her hands. It seemed…not empty as the room had been, just completely and utterly _wrong_. A tall glass, transparent, with no discernible marks or…or chips…in its side. She blinked and looked up at her father, realizing she’d fallen silent for a long moment. “I don’t want to go back. Can I stay here?”

Emotion flooded her papa’s—her _dad’s_ —eyes as he gave her a shaky smile. “Of course you can, Belle. This is your home.”

That didn’t feel right, either, and Belle began to wonder if she had grown to think of the cell and the hospital as _normal_. The thought terrified her, shook her so badly she almost flew apart, because she did not _want_ to resign herself to captivity, did not want that to be her life at all. So she reached out and curled her hand around her papa’s— _no, Dad’s, and there is nothing wrong with the feel of his hand,_ nothing _!_ —and smiled back at him.

“Thank you.”

And when her father hugged her again, she pushed aside her feelings that something was horribly, intrinsically wrong, ignored her half-formed thought that she had done something terrible, and hugged him back. Because his hug was exactly as she remembered, and he was her father no matter what she called him, and even if this didn’t feel like home anymore, it _was_.

And eventually, she promised herself, it would _feel_ like home again.

Eventually, it would stop feeling wrong.

But she couldn’t stay in her father’s embrace forever, couldn’t shut out the rest of the world— _she_ couldn’t, though the nurses and orderlies and doctors had been able to shut _her_ away from the world for what had certainly felt like forever—and though her father assured her that she didn’t have to go back, didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to do, he nonetheless had to leave her temporarily to ensure that she _could_ stay with him.

He left her sitting outside on a stone wall radiating the vestiges of winter, surrounded by the sparse branches beginning to hint of approaching spring. She closed her eyes and let the wan sunlight wash over her, tried not to hear her father on the phone in the house, talking to the sheriff, telling her where Belle was, explaining what had happened, posing his own severe questions about _what did he do to her_ and _why did she leave him_ and _where is he, what will he do_.

They seemed odd questions, odd concerns, because surely it had been more than one man that had judged her ill fit for society and signed papers to take away her freedom and locked a door that hadn’t opened again until just…just recently. Surely it had been a system, and a hospital, and a set of laws, and a lot of other things that were impossible to circumvent. Because if it had been only a man, only one person, then why had no one been able to stop him? Why had no one been able to stand in his way and gainsay him and tear his hand from Belle’s arm and stop him from shutting her away? No, it had been more than a man. It had been a situation, a system, a…an insurmountable problem that had held only one solution, had demanded the sacrifice of her freedom.

She was still sitting in the bare garden, looking all around her at the colors— _beautiful colors, even the lime-green of grass that needs watering, especially that brown bark that looks so familiar for some reason_ —letting her hands run ceaselessly over the uneven ridges of the stones beneath her, her bare feet moving over the hard dirt beneath her, heedless of the cold, when he stepped into view. Belle cocked her head curiously for a moment, watching him in bemusement, for he walked through the back gate as if the garden belonged to him, as if he did not even realize there was a front door he should have gone to, as if he noticed nothing next to the sight of her.

Because he was looking at nothing _but_ her, desperately, intently, fixedly, his cane digging into the dirt without allowing it to slow him. She thought she should have felt uncomfortable beneath his scrutiny, should have maybe been a little afraid of his sudden appearance, perhaps a bit put off by his silence, but she was none of those things. She knew him, after all, and Mr. Gold had always been a little bit different, a little bit off. She felt a certain kinship with him in that, their matching way of being just that little bit out of sync with the rest of the world, just that little bit hesitant about the correct, proper way of comfortably interacting with others.

“Mr. Gold,” she said, and she smiled, happy to see him. Her memories were still fuzzy, but she remembered him there, at the hospital, helping her out of her cell, swinging the door aside as if it were nothing, as if it were not the most immovable, insurmountable obstacle she had ever faced, her greatest, most hated foe. He had helped rescue her from the dark and that terrible _non_ state of being, and she was more grateful than she knew how to say, so she simply smiled at him.

“Belle,” he said, and a flicker of unease passed through her because he had never called her that before. He was always formal, retreating behind rules, barricading himself behind titles, hiding himself in his shop and his books and his wares. He said nothing else, just her name, and still he did not stop walking toward her, his gaze so absorbed in her that she knew—without a doubt, knew for the first time since being locked away—that she really did exist, that she was here and whole and real.

He was close enough now that she had to tilt her head, just a bit, to look up at him. “Are you all right?” she asked him. It was not a question one usually asked Mr. Gold, but he looked slightly unsteady, looked as if he might just start trembling and shake apart into a hundred pieces. Belle felt a deep sympathy for him, then, because that was a feeling she experienced often.

“Am _I_ all right?” he repeated, and he halted abruptly, only two paces away from her, the cane clasped in a white-knuckled hand. “Belle…what happened?” He took a deep breath, a shuddering breath, and Belle hoped he would not fly apart right then. There was something about the handkerchief sticking up out of his breast pocket, something that made her narrow her eyes in concentration as she tried to recall what the importance of the sight was, and only belatedly did she realize that he had asked her, in a cautious tone, if she was all right.

“Yes, I am well,” she told him, kindly so as to not unbalance his wavering stability. “I don’t know if I mentioned it before—I can’t quite remember, you see—but thank you. For saving me.”

And quite suddenly, so abruptly that Belle blinked and wavered herself, Mr. Gold looked very, very scared. It was gone so quickly that Belle wondered if she had imagined it because everyone knew that Mr. Gold was afraid of nothing and no one, that he was completely unflappable, that it was impossible to break through his iron restraint. But then, Belle knew the lie of that already, didn’t she?

“Belle…” And now he was so very tentative, his eyes probing hers as if she were a mystery to be uncovered, as if she were one of his precious antiques and only he could see the worth and value of it under the veneer of dust and rust and misuse. “Belle, you…you _do_ remember who I am. Don’t you?”

She knew he hated to be laughed at— _he always looked so startled,_ she remembered, _so pleased, when I laughed with him, but not_ at _him,_ never _at him_ —but she could not help the tiny giggle that escaped her. “Of course I know who you are. Everyone knows who Mr. Gold is. And how could I forget you? You’re rather memorable.”

Mr. Gold was a hard person to read, inscrutable at the best of times, misleading at the worst, but in that moment, he was like an open book. A book she didn’t understand, as if she had come in on the middle chapter. He stared at her with a stricken expression, and he did not breathe, as if she had punched him in the stomach, stabbed him in the back, vanished right before his eyes. And this time, the vulnerable expression wasn’t covered over right away; it stayed there, frozen over his features, and for the first time, Belle looked at him and realized, with a start of surprise, that he was old, older than she had thought, much older than her.

Finally, moving very slowly, he opened his mouth to speak.

Whatever he would have said, whatever secrets spewed forth, whatever questions posed, they all dried and up and evaporated when her father stepped out of the house and into the garden, calling her name. “Belle? Belle, the sheriff’s on her way, and—”

When her father saw Gold, he stopped as abruptly as if he had run into a brick wall. And in less than the blink of an eye, that strange, stricken expression was wiped away from Mr. Gold’s face, replaced with his customary look of polite menace, a mask hiding the torrent within. He shifted his weight, readjusting his stance, leaning both hands on his cane.

As if galvanized by Mr. Gold’s movement, her father shifted too, striding forward to stand beside Belle, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. Belle couldn’t help but think that was a little strange; she had worked for Mr. Gold before, after all, and her father had never seemed to mind then.

“Mr. Gold, what are you doing here?” There was an edge to her father’s voice Belle had never heard before, and she didn’t like it, didn’t like the cold gleam it ignited in Mr. Gold’s dark eyes.

“I was checking on Ms. French here. She disappeared rather suddenly; I wanted to make sure she was safe.”

“She is,” her father asserted, so fiercely, so quickly, that Belle jumped a little. Oddly, she found herself shrinking away from her father’s touch—just slightly, yet she had never done it before. And belatedly, distractedly, she realized that from the moment Mr. Gold had appeared in their back garden to the moment her father had arrived, she had not once felt like things were wrong. In fact, they had seemed… _right_. Or almost right. More right than they had been before. She wondered why that was, wondered if maybe it was because Mr. Gold had been the one to open that locked door. Maybe she felt safe with him; maybe he was proof that she wasn’t locked up still, wasn’t just imagining all of this, proof she secretly needed.

The doorbell rang behind them, and her father patted her shoulder soothingly when she jumped at the unexpectedness of it. “It’s probably the sheriff,” he said. “Would you get the door, Belle?”

“All right,” she agreed, a touch hesitantly. She knew her father wanted to talk to Mr. Gold without her there, knew he was afraid she would shatter into pieces just as she had been afraid Mr. Gold would. But the doorbell rang again and _someone_ needed to answer it, so she slipped out of her father’s reach and moved to the door—a sliding glass door already ajar. She bit her lip and glanced back, once, ducking through the curtains, to see Mr. Gold watching her, something almost…hollow…about him.

But the doorbell rang again, and she had to look forward to find her way, and when she looked back, he had disappeared behind the hazy curtains.

Belle’s hands clenched into tight fists as she approached the front door. It looked nothing like the door of her cell, nothing all like any of the doors in the hospital, and yet it was closed, and the doorknob mocked her with its taunts that she had only to twist and pull, only to try and fail. Her memories were rife with thousands upon thousands of her attempts to open the door of her cell, throwing her whole body at it until she was covered with bruises and they tied her down, scrabbling at its edges and locks until her hands bled and they wrapped her in a straitjacket, whispering commands and imagined spells at it until she was hoarse and they made her swallow pills that stole hours and days and thoughts from her.

_But this is a different door_ , she reminded herself, and when the doorbell rang a fourth time, she reached out a trembling hand and touched the doorknob, took an instant to savor the sensation of its warm metal, then twisted and pulled.

It opened.

At first, she wasn’t even aware that the sheriff—a tall, blonde woman she vaguely remembered seeing at the hospital with Mr. Gold—was talking to her, could only stare at the door in wide-eyed shock that it had actually opened at her hand. But she was back in the real world now, and she had to get used to doors opening, to rooms wider than four paces, to people who smiled without trying to get her to swallow more drugs.

With a faint smile, she looked up at the sheriff. “Yes,” she said, though she wasn’t really sure what the woman had asked her. “My father and Mr. Gold are in the garden.”

The sheriff— _Emma_ , she remembered, with a thrill of triumph at being able to grab hold of the wavering memory—eyed her sharply. “ _Mr_. Gold?” she repeated.

“Yes,” Belle said again. “You didn’t know he was here?”

“No, I…” Emma shook her head. “I did. I mean, I knew he was looking for you, but you don’t usually…” She cast another measuring glance Belle’s way, and Belle shrank away from the suspicious stare. Warily, hesitantly, she began to lead Emma back the way she had just come. She wanted to be outside, wanted to feel the open air even if it was cold, wanted to see if she could figure out why Mr. Gold had been looking at her as if she were far more than just an employee who had left him without giving him her two week’s notice. “Are you sure you’re all right, Belle? You kind of scared us when you collapsed last night.”

“Last night?” Belle frowned, but try as she might, she couldn’t remember much of the days since she’d been carried out of the hospital. She thought it had been only a few days since then, but it was hard to be sure when everything was a haze in her mind. “It must have been the drugs,” she decided, and smiled again, just to prove to herself that she could. Just to reassure the sheriff who couldn’t seem to stop frowning speculatively at her.

Belle heard her father even before she reached the sliding glass door, and she ignored whatever the sheriff was saying behind her in favor of straining to make out his individual words. “—don’t quite understand, but you did get her out of that place, and…and she obviously trusted you. But now she’s…just…just leave her be. Please.”

Biting her lip, Belle stopped at the door, not quite hiding behind the curtains but not making any effort to be seen either. She waited—glad Emma had fallen silent behind her—listening for Mr. Gold’s reply. He had never liked being told what to do, not unless she pretended it was only a suggestion and smiled at him brightly while keeping busy, presenting the façade that it didn’t entirely matter to her. Then he would shake his head at her and tell her it wasn’t wise to smile at old dragons and he would pretend to snarl something cross at her and then, if she waited a few minutes more, he would give into her and pretend changing his mind to match her suggestion was his own idea, always with that smirk on his lips to give away his amusement. It had been a game they had played, but Belle didn’t think he’d ever played it with anyone besides her, didn’t think he’d ever let anyone get away with making anything off-limits to him. That her father was trying now both impressed and confused her.

“So long as she is safe, Mr. French, I have no cause to interfere, now do I? If she is happy, then…” The pause was slight, so slight that Belle didn’t think anyone but she would notice the tiny catch in his breath. “Then so am I.”

Emma shifted behind her, and Belle was reminded that she was supposed to be leading the sheriff outside. She felt oddly reluctant to let Emma outside to see Mr. Gold in his vulnerable moment, felt strangely hesitant to even see her father when all she wanted to do was ask Mr. Gold why he was about to cry. But the sheriff was waiting to follow her into the garden and her father was trying to protect her and Mr. Gold would not thank her to make a scene. So she took a breath and stepped outside, and the two men standing there, paces apart, vastly different in size and shape and stature, turned to look at Belle and Emma with matching neutral expressions.

“Gold, how did you know to come here?” Emma asked curiously with little more than a greeting nod for Belle’s father.

A grimace passed across Mr. Gold’s face. “I received a call from a certain…interested…party.”

The sheriff opened her mouth as if to press him, but Belle could see the tiny cracks in Mr. Gold’s mask, could see the bit of extra weight he was allowing his cane to support, and as much time as she had spent in that cell, she well remembered how she’d tried to help her employer as much as possible during his so-rare weak moments. So, grasping hold of her flickering courage, she interrupted.

“I can stay here, can’t I?” She kept her gaze on Emma, gratified when the sheriff looked away from Mr. Gold to give her full attention to Belle. “I…I don’t have to go back to the hospital?”

“Of course not,” Mr. Gold snapped.

Belle’s father and Emma both shot him matching disgruntled looks, but Belle smiled at him gratefully. That extra lilt to his voice was usually only there when he was impatient, irritated that she’d brought up a topic he’d thought already closed. That he sounded impatient and almost irritated now calmed her; if there was one thing she could depend on above all others, it was Mr. Gold’s word, and he would not be so impatient now if he were still worried about her safety.

“You don’t have to go back,” Emma said, looking once more to Belle. “As long as you keep seeing Dr. Hopper until—”

“Dr. Hopper?” Belle was trying very hard not to be alarmed, and she knew that there were doctors outside of the ones who’d held her down, who’d force-fed her pills, who’d looked at her with detached gazes and spoke in stilted tones, but she couldn’t quite keep the nervous words from falling out of her mouth. “Who is he? Why do I have to see him?”

Emma stared at her, her mouth slightly open, her eyes wide and suspicious.

“Belle,” her father murmured, and he wrapped a thick arm around her shoulders, led her back to the stone wall, helped her sit. “You don’t remember talking to Dr. Hopper?”

“Was…was he at the hospital?” She bit her lip, tried to look past her father to Mr. Gold, caught a tiny glimpse of him standing motionless, expressionless, his reaction all the more stark for his lack of noticeable emotion. He’d always been good at misdirection, not so much at blatant deception, and right now, it was obvious that he was deeply shaken, so shaken he couldn’t even summon up his usual condescending smirk.

“No,” Papa— _Dad_ —said gently. “You’ve met with him several times this past week, since getting out of the hospital.”

“A week? But I only got out a couple days ago.” She hated sounding like an echo, hated even more the concerned, startled looks her father and the sheriff kept exchanging. A thrill of fear sang through her veins, sharp and hot and immediate, because those were the kind of looks she’d received before they’d escorted her down below the hospital and into that cell.

“It’s all right, sweetie,” her father comforted her with a slightly clumsy pat on her shoulder. “Dr. Hopper is very friendly, and he’s been helping you a lot. He’ll make sure you’re well and that they can’t send you back to…to that place.” His disgust for the hospital reassured her, but not as much as the cold, hard glint in Mr. Gold’s eyes. He’d always been oddly protective of her, and she reminded herself that he’d gotten her out once. Even if they sent her back again, surely he could get her out again.

“Belle…” Emma crouched down so she could look up into Belle’s eyes. Belle cocked her head slightly as she met her gaze, trying to decide what she thought about the sheriff. Curiously, she felt a slight amount of antipathy toward her, though she couldn’t explain why. Emma had helped rescue her, after all, was helping her stay free; shouldn’t she feel grateful toward her? But she didn’t. She felt only mildly defensive, vaguely offended, somewhat on her guard.

“Belle, can you remember what happened last night? You collapsed without warning and no one could wake you up until, apparently, this morning. Do you know what happened?”

“No.” Belle paused, fear and honesty fighting for prominence within her. “I…they said sometimes I would black out. In the hospital. They said I…I did things. Without knowing it.”

“You did nothing,” Mr. Gold interjected, his tone so even, so smooth, so assured, that Belle couldn’t disbelieve him. A sigh of relief flowed out of her, slumping her shoulders, and her eyes fluttered closed. _I didn’t do anything! I don’t have to go back!_ “It was probably just a result of you trying to overdo things. It’ll be awhile before you’re fully recovered from the physical strain of your…treatment.”

Belle looked over the sheriff’s head, past her father’s shoulder, to the pawnbroker standing there all alone, his gaze intent on her. She offered him a small smile, all she had the energy for. “Thank you,” she said again, and knew it was the wrong response for what he’d said, but it was what she was feeling, and she owed him a thousand thank yous, ten-thousand.

And maybe it was the right response after all, because his eyes softened ever so slightly, and his grip on the head of his cane loosened, just the tiniest bit…but it was enough.

Things still felt wrong, a bit, but something…something was made right, for this moment, and that was enough for now. Later, she would think about the rest. Later, she would try to puzzle it all out. Later, she would consider her last memories of Mr. Gold contrasted with his present behavior. Later, she would worry about the sheriff and this Dr. Hopper. Later, she would try to reassure her father.

Later. But if her stay in the hospital had taught her anything, it was to enjoy the small things, the short moments, the little pleasures. So she took what was right in this moment, and she luxuriated in the bright sunlight, the frigid air, the grains of dirt under her toes, the stone under her hands, and the soft, wondering look in Mr. Gold’s dark, compelling eyes. It wasn’t much, maybe, but it was the most she’d had in more time than she could put a number to, and that made it precious.

Emma seemed to realize there wasn’t much point in anything more and stayed only a moment or two longer, conferring with Mr. Gold in a whisper, before she left. Mr. Gold looked at Belle for a moment, then nodded his head in farewell, and turned and walked away, his movements more stilted than the usual grace he normally displayed.

Belle watched him go, afraid that things would start feeling _wrong_ again when he was no longer there, but they didn’t. They weren’t completely right, but then, she couldn’t expect miracle cures, couldn’t expect overnight recoveries. Her father was at her side, and the room he led her to occupied a great deal of her memories, and the pictures on the walls proved she’d once lived here, and things may not have felt right, but they didn’t feel wrong either.

Still, she wondered that night, when she slipped out of the perfectly tailored dress she’d woken in and put on the overlarge pajamas her father had found for her, why on earth she had a dark red handkerchief in her pocket. Wondered why it fit in her hand as if it was meant to always be there. Wondered why, out of all the homey knickknacks and nostalgic mementos and familiar things around her, the handkerchief felt dearest of all.

It was a mystery, one she didn’t appreciate when mysteries and oddities were what could get her locked up again, but her life was filled with mysteries and oddities and strangeness no matter what she did. So she supposed, in the grand scheme of things, a handkerchief wasn’t that big a deal, and nor was the fact that in the morning, after donning one of the many beautiful dresses someone had dropped off before she woke, she automatically, without even thinking about it, slipped the handkerchief into her pocket.

 ---

Her father made a token protest against her accompanying him to the flower shop, but he didn’t want to let her out of his sight just as much as she didn’t want to be trapped in one spot. She shivered in the cold morning air until her father draped one of his old jackets over her shoulders. It was much too large and hung awkwardly on her, but it was warm and it smelled of him and the gesture was so much like what she remembered of him that she found herself smiling and running her hands over the woolen front again and again as she followed her father into the shop.

The flowers, even before spring had officially begun, filled the shop with a distinctive plethora of scents, a bouquet of aromas almost as tantalizing and colorful as the blossoms themselves. Belle stopped in the doorway and breathed in deeply, wandered here and there to drink in the varying shades of the natural perfumes. When she passed by the display of roses, she stopped an extra moment, her eyes fluttering closed as she inhaled, an image of a perfect red rose engrafted into her mind, conjured up internally without any effort at all.

She helped her father all morning, composing varied arrangements, watering displays, taking basic inventory for his next order, and always reaching out to brush her hands over the different flowers and leaves and wrapping paper and glass and plastic vases, craving sensation in a way she never had before. In the cell, she had never thought much on touch, and yet now that she was able to touch whatever she wished, she found herself becoming almost gluttonous in her pursuit of sensation and touch and texture.

It was during lunch—a few sandwiches her father had made and brought for old time’s sake, a callback to her school years when he’d made her a different type of sandwich every day, always making her guess what type it would be—that she first felt the walls beginning to close in around her. She wasn’t claustrophobic, or at least she didn’t think she was; it just seemed that the walls began to shrink in, closing around her until she had only four paces between her and the walls, until she felt as if she would be trapped in this new cell as surely as she’d been trapped in the old one. She couldn’t help but dart quick glances at the glass doors, afraid that when she stepped over to them, she’d find them locked tight.

“Do you want to take a walk out front, get some air?” her father asked, and Belle felt a surge of warm affection rush through her. He was looking at his sandwich, as if the question meant little to him, but the note of compassion in his voice gave him away.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Could I really?”

He did look at her, then, his expression very serious. “You’re not a prisoner anymore, Belle, and I would never lock you away. You can go where you like, do what you will—you made it clear to me earlier this week that this is your life. And you deserve whatever you want.”

She felt a flicker of confusion at the mention of their earlier conversation, but rose to her feet and bent to hug him. “Thank you, P—Dad. I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said, a bit choked, his eyes once more falling to the remains of his lunch. “Be careful, all right? And remember you have an appointment with Dr. Hopper at four.”

Even though she knew he wouldn’t mind if she chose to stay with him all day, Belle couldn’t ignore her growing fears that the doors wouldn’t open for her, so she hugged him again, then took a deep breath before braving the doors. To her infinite relief, they opened easily, and she quickly slipped outside. She’d forgotten the jacket her father had loaned her, she realized almost immediately, but she didn’t dare go back for it, not when she was actually outside where there were no doors or walls to entrap her.

At first, Belle contented herself with drifting through the displays her father had set up in the tiny courtyard adjoining the shop, running her fingers through the potted trees and hardy winter flowers he’d arranged so carefully. But after a while, even the open, natural aisles made by the plants began to seem confined.

Tentatively, keeping one hand running along the walls of the shops she passed and noting the differences between brick and wood and cement, Belle began to walk down the street, looking all about her curiously, seeking any changes that might have occurred during her incarceration but not really finding any. People passed her by, all of them watching her closely, but she recognized few of them and no one stopped to talk to her.

“Are you Belle?”

Belle started and whipped around to face behind her, heart stuttering wildly in her chest. She bit her lip when she found a young boy, tall for his age, with dark hair and wise eyes peering up at her. He hitched the backpack he wore higher on his shoulder and offered her a friendly smile. She didn’t recognize him and idly wondered how old he’d been when she’d been…taken. _Come to think of it_ , she thought dully, _just how long_ was _I locked away?_

“ _Are_ you Belle? My name’s Henry. My mom—my mom’s the sheriff—told me about you.”

“Oh,” she said uncertainly, taking a backward step to feel the bricks moving beneath her fingers. “What did she say?”

Henry shrugged and moved to walk beside her, allowing her to face forward again, though she still watched him carefully. “Well, I don’t think she told me all of it, but she said Mr. Gold knew about you and came to ask for her help, then they walked down into the hospital and carried you out! Pretty exciting! My mom’s a hero, you know.” He cast a calculating glance up at her, as if trying to decide whether he should trust her with his next words. “The clock started working when she came to town.”

“Oh,” Belle heard herself saying again. _Maybe I won’t seem so strange in town if everyone’s like him_ , she found herself thinking, and instantly felt guilty. She offered him a smile in apology, even though he hadn’t heard her ungracious thought. “I’m very glad she helped free me.”

“Your name is Belle, right?” Henry asked her again, as if it were very important, so important he had to double-check.

“Yes,” she replied. “Belle French. I…I don’t remember you.”

“That’s all right,” he said quickly, and strangely, _he_ looked somewhat guilty. “You…you were probably locked up a…a _very_ long time.”

Belle looked away, down at her hand trailing along the glass windows of a storefront. Her other hand had flown instinctively to her pocket, and now she clutched fast hold of the handkerchief and told herself, very firmly, that it was only her imagination that even the sky itself seemed to be falling down on her, trying to enclose her in stern walls.

“So, Belle,” Henry’s voice was purposefully cheerful, carefully casual, so much so that Belle actually looked at him, not surprised to find him staring right back at her. She was a bit curious as to how he avoided walking into anything with as little attention as he was paying to the sidewalk in front of him. “Do you like books, then?”

“Books?” she repeated, and hoped she didn’t sound as dumb to the young boy as she did to herself. “Yes…yes, I do. Why?”

“Oh, no reason.” But he had a smug smile playing along the edges of his mouth, one of his hands absentmindedly patting his backpack. “Where are you going?”

_He’s certainly an odd boy_ , Belle thought, but she didn’t really mind the questions, not from him. He had an engaging air, a friendly look to him, that she liked; she thought he could probably set anyone at ease without even trying.

“I’m on a walk,” she answered after a moment, realizing she hadn’t given him a reply. “Where are you going?”

“I’m…just hanging around. Are you going somewhere special?” Henry peered up at her, and in contrast to his earlier forced neutrality, she thought this really was just a casual question.

Belle hesitated a long moment. She hadn’t even admitted to herself where she was going, where she’d been wanting to go since waking up this morning, where she’d been generally headed ever since leaving the flower shop. But why hide it? It wasn’t a strange destination for her, after all; she had plenty of reasons to see him and talk to him. So she canted her chin a bit higher and said, “I’m going to see Mr. Gold.”

Henry stumbled to a halt, his young face falling into surprised lines as he gaped at her. “What? _Why_? Do you owe him something? Is that why he made my mom rescue you?”

The handkerchief was smooth in her palm, slick and soft at the same time, and warm from her body heat. She frowned down at the boy. “What?”

“Nobody goes to see him unless they need something from him,” Henry whispered, dark warning weighting his words as he leaned in toward her. “He’s dangerous, maybe even more dangerous than—” Abruptly, he cut himself off, glanced away, then looked back to her. “Why do you need to see him?”

“I don’t _need_ to see him,” Belle said, her voice detached. She was well used to warnings and cautions such as this; she’d long since lost count of how many of them she’d received after taking her job as Mr. Gold’s assistant in the shop. “I _want_ to see him. He did rescue me, after all. Besides, I work for him.”

“You…you do?” There was a new wariness to his tone, a certain caution in the way he looked at her. “Why?”

“Why not?” she returned. Determinedly, more fixed in her desire to see Mr. Gold now than she had been before, Belle began walking again, this time not even bothering to pretend to wander, heading straight for her destination. “Everybody needs somebody, you know.”

“The Beast,” Henry whispered, and Belle stared at him, perplexed.

“What?”

“Uh…nothing!” He looked away, shifting the weight of his backpack uncomfortably. “So…you think Mr. Gold’s a good guy, then?”

She blinked. “You don’t?” It was not a question she’d ever really thought about, truthfully, but as Belle considered it, thinking on her stern employer with his small smiles and hidden sense of humor and enjoyment in a good cup of tea and over-protectiveness of her, she couldn’t imagine him as a bad person. Oh, she knew there were certainly things he had done that she never would have, and she hadn’t always been sure she could figure out what his plans or goals were, but she had never been able to figure out his strategy in their chess games either and yet he’d never broken the rules to win. “He is good,” she whispered, almost forgetting Henry entirely as the sign to Mr. Gold’s shop came into view.

“Okay,” Henry said easily, surprising her into recalling his presence. “Well, then, I guess…I should probably go. My mom, you know, and…uh, well…” He was already backing away, and Belle wondered, a bit sadly, if he’d ever talk to her again now that he knew of her association with the most feared man in town. “Oh!” His eyebrows rose as if he’d just remembered something. “You might be interested to know that the library’s been closed for a long time—but I’m sure someone who loved books could open it! You know, if you ever need a different job.” And then he was running across the street toward an old yellow car, tossing a “Bye, Belle!” over his shoulder.

Belle watched him for only a moment before looking back to Mr. Gold’s pawnshop. She’d walked there from home more times than she could count, sometimes carrying a container of food, other times with some flowers to brighten the place up, and even once with a present she’d dared get for him. But it had been a long time since those days—years, she thought—and yet she’d just told Henry that she still worked there. She couldn’t quite say where the words had come from, maybe habit, maybe hope, but she wondered, belatedly, if she had lied to the boy.

Slowly, Belle smoothed out the handkerchief in her pocket by feel alone, straightening its creases, rubbing its length against her palm. She didn’t feel brave, didn’t think she had ever been brave before in her life, but this might just be the day she needed to pretend to a bit of courage.

Because Mr. Gold had certainly gone far and beyond the call of duty to help her considering he was only her former employer, and because when he had been in front of her, everything had seemed right and none of the walls had tried to close in around her, no doors had locked in her mind, and her fear of returning to the hospital had been allayed. For now, those seemed like good enough reasons to cross the street toward his shop and pull open the door to the accompanying sound of the familiar bell overhead.

An even better reason, but one she didn’t care to dwell on, was the tiny flutter in the pit of her stomach at the memory of that vulnerable, uncertain, awed look that had burned on and off like buried coals in his eyes the day before.

She didn’t dwell on it…but she couldn’t help but wonder if she could get him to look at her like that again.

\---


	10. Out Of Plans

\---

He—he no longer knew what to call himself, this new, strange amalgamation of himself, both Rumplestiltskin and Mr. Gold, neither fully one nor wholly another—he whiled away the long, empty, lonely hours by plotting out his revenge on Regina. He knew it was her fault, knew she had tricked him with the teacup just as she had tricked him so long ago with her tale of associations and towers and scourging, knew she had thought to keep him distracted. Well, he was distracted all right, but not in the way she had doubtless hoped.

_She would have done far better to leave Belle with me_ , he thought, and meant it in more ways than one. If he had had Belle at his side, he would have been able to curtail his savage need to make Regina pay for what she had done to the one bright spot in his life; if Belle had been with him, he would have made protecting her his first priority, would have allowed his fixation on breaking the curse and guiding the royal family to the destiny he had foretold for them to dim slightly, would have thought long and hard on how to find Bae and keep himself anchored in this world. But now…now that Belle was no longer his, was cursed just as much as the rest of them, was better off without him trying to bring back some measure of his own happiness with her and inviting the curse down on them…well, now he had more than enough time to think on Regina and the interfering walks she had taken and the dungeons she had locked and the teacups she had sabotaged and the oh-so-polite phone call she’d made to let him know Belle had been seen entering Moe French’s house, _just to make sure you don’t come to the wrong conclusion and hurt Henry by accident,_ so she’d gleefully, courteously said.

Well, he certainly hadn’t come to the wrong conclusion, only the right one, and now he had more than enough time to plan.

She would pay, he vowed, and pay in such a way as to inflict the most damage. Before— _before Belle_ —she had been a useful ally, a potential enemy, a cooperative peer, and a convenient scapegoat. But then she had lied, had taunted him with common names and terrifying images and purported death, and suddenly it had become more personal. Suddenly it had been necessary that she sacrifice what _she_ loved most in order to gain the power she wanted—the same sacrifice he had himself made, thanks to her. Suddenly it had become more than just a matter of using those around him, had become all about killing two or three or a dozen birds with one large, cursed stone.

And now, now things were even worse. Now Regina would come to think that losing her stable boy had been nothing more than a prick to the heart in comparison to what he had planned for her. And the irony was that it wouldn’t even take much. Another visit to her office, a conversation about Kathryn and the role she could play, the staging of a murder, the framing of the innocent, the offer of an attorney’s role, and then, eventually, inevitably, the moment when the evidence would, in a trail of legal breadcrumbs, all lead back to her doorstep. And her son, the precious son she had risked so drastically with her trick, would be taken from her, would look at her as coldly as if she were a stranger, would be ripped away from her just as surely as she had ripped Belle away from him. It was only fair; after all, they’d had a deal, and he—Rumplestiltskin _and_ Gold—never broke deals, and no one, not even Her Majesty, got away with breaking a deal with him.

And stealing Henry from her, well, that was just the beginning.

Unfortunately, planning could only take so much of his concentration, fill so many of the empty hours, distract him only so long from the porcelain dust he hadn’t yet had the heart to sweep off the rug. Gypsy had started to do it, after she had arrived home to find him lying there on the floor, cradling Belle to him, cursing his own curse for stealing the magic that could have protected her. But when the outcast nurse had started for the shards with a broom, he’d stopped her immediately, and made her help him carry Belle to her room, and set her as guard over his love while he called the doctor and visited the Mayor-Queen. Not that having Gypsy watch Belle had helped anyway, because Belle had still gotten up and walked away from him as easily this time as she had the last.

He found himself wondering what Belle’s reaction to the clothing and other effects he’d had Gypsy take her this morning had been before catching himself. He couldn’t think on her, not right now. Not anymore. She wasn’t his anymore. Wasn’t even _Belle_ anymore. She was a stranger now, with implanted memories and enforced habits and missing traits. He had spent half the night before remembering her as she had been and the other half wondering what quality his curse would steal from her.

_Her bravery_ , he thought yet again. _Surely it will take her bravery. And without that, how will she ever find it in her to face the beast? To love me?_

She wouldn’t. It was as simple as that.

It was over. And if it didn’t hurt so much, he’d convince himself it was for the best.

The bell over his door rang with a tinkling that shattered the resignation he was trying to swathe himself in, trying to wrap around himself until it didn’t sting so much to even think of her name.

With a sigh, feeling every one of his uncounted years, he set down the strands of fine gold he’d been weaving into a single chain in an effort to forget and took hold of his cane. When he limped past the curtain and into the main portion of his shop, he felt himself stumbling to a halt, felt the room spin around him, his cane all that kept him upright as he stared at the beautiful woman entering the mouth of the den, peering all about rather curiously.

“Belle,” he whispered.

_But it isn’t her, is it_? No, it was a siren, a simulacrum, a shell empty of all she had been, an illusion with her face and voice and scent and smile and piercing blue eyes and small, delicate hands, and kind expression…but not her.

Not Belle.

“Miss French,” he corrected himself, more loudly, and suddenly he wished he had chosen a different name for her Storybrooke self, something so much more than _Miss French_ and so much less than _Belle_. “What can I do for you today?”

Belle stared at him for a long moment before starting slightly, as if just realizing he had spoken, and taking a tiny step forward. He wished she hadn’t; the movement brought her full into the patch of sunlight shining past the lettering painted over the storefront windows, and for a moment all he could smell was the dust from faded curtains and all he could feel was warmth and softness and awakening interest from a small woman fitting just so in his arms.

She shook her head slightly and offered him a polite smile. “Mr. Gold, I…” His hands tightened over his cane, and he was glad he was behind the counter where she couldn’t see his immediate reaction to the name she used for him. Not that she would have noticed anyway; her attention seemed to have been caught by the handkerchief in his breast pocket, though he could not figure out why the simple bit of cloth was more interesting than anything else in his shop. Perhaps she just judged it the safest place to look.

“Miss French?” he prompted, the form of address like arsenic on his tongue.

With a slight blush, her eyes dropped to the floor. “I’m sorry. I just…I know that before…I left without giving my two week’s notice last time, and I—”

“Ah, don’t worry,” he interrupted dryly, turning away before she could catch whatever emotion he might betray at the mention of her leaving. At this burning reminder that all she had were false memories of him. He settled himself behind the counter, held his ground there as if it were a barricade able to protect him from her. “I think it was a long enough while for me to get the picture that you weren’t coming back.”

“Yes,” she said softly, almost dejectedly. But then her chin canted into the air in such a familiar mannerism that Gold’s breath caught in his throat. “I mean, no! I mean…it’s just that…well, I was wondering…” She trailed off, and her eyes drifted past him once more, as if she could not bear to even look at him. But no, she was looking around at the shop, her gaze darting from one corner to another, eyes widening slightly before she blurted, “It’s not small in here!”

“Oh?” He looked around too. Painful to tear his eyes from her; necessary to, though, in order to retain some hold on what was left of his sanity. He could keep telling himself this wasn’t Belle until this world, too, was torn all to pieces and remade into yet another, but that didn’t change the fact that all he could see when he looked at this young woman standing before him was Belle. _His_ Belle.

She bit her lip, so much more unsure and distractible in this too-similar, too-tempting incarnation. “It’s…well, it’s a little strange, but every place, even outside, seems to…to get small after a while, to shrink around me. But not here.” Her lips curved upward as she looked around again, and Gold felt something in his chest squeeze and contract, shrink as surely as if it were cued by her words. “It…it feels like there’s a whole world in here.”

Fate was either very cruel, or she was trying to tell him something. He wished he didn’t have enough experience and knowledge of the curse to know it was the former, not the latter. He was pierced by her smile and her eyes and her words, pierced by her similarities, by the differences, by the beauty he couldn’t help but see in her with every breath. “Perhaps there is,” he said tightly, and even he could not have said whether he was dropping hints or helping the world punish him. “One we’ve forgotten.”

Her grin was immediate, bright, and relieved, some subtle tension leaking out of her. Inwardly wincing, he realized she must have been afraid he would think she was crazy, would send her back. It was just another agonizing reminder that this…this _siren_ …did not remember him, did not know him. Did not love him.

And still he could not help but return the smile, his own small and wan and washed out.

“Can I have my job back?” she asked abruptly, seemingly encouraged by his attempt at a smile.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe. Because this was all beginning to feel very familiar, and he couldn’t let it happen. He _couldn’t_. This was how it had begun before, and she had crept in so very, very quickly, and he had been powerless before her, powerless to do anything but hurt and reject and maim and destroy. And he could not do it again, could not stand so close to temptation and still be expected to turn away from it now that he knew exactly how sweet she tasted and soft she felt and beautiful she was when smiling back at him with that special look just for him in her eyes.

He could not do it to her again.

Because he could blame the Queen all he wanted, could lay all the fault on her doorstep, but that didn’t change the fact that it was he who had cast her out. He who had turned her away. He who had believed lies. He who had never looked for her. He who had left her in a cell for three decades. He who had brought down suspicion and mistrust and uncertainty on her just by his very presence at her side.

No, she was better off without him. Better off making a new life for herself here. Better off staying with her father and meeting Snow White’s faded shadow and winning Emma’s championship and…and…and not being with him. Better off all around because he too well knew what happened to those few brave souls who tried to love him.

“I mean,” she stammered, suddenly nervous once more in the face of his silence, “I…I know I left without warning and that it’s been a…well, a long time since…but I was wondering—I was _hoping_ that I…could come back and work with you. If it’s all right with you.”

She looked so hopeful, so earnest, so much like she had when perched on a spinning wheel, that he had to look away. And to his utter confusion, he abandoned the slender safety of the counter and moved to stand in front of her, only paces between them. “Not many people combine _hoping_ and _with me_ in the same sentence, my dear.” The endearment slipped out before he could catch it, as quick and spry as the glowing insects on Firefly Hill, and he didn’t want her to notice it, didn’t want to see confusion or revulsion— _or pleasure_ —so he quickly added, “And why do you need a job so soon? Your father hasn’t kicked you out, has he?”

“What?” She frowned at him. “No, of course not! It’s just that…well, lately, things have seemed…I don’t know, a bit _off_. As if something is missing or…or…or something. And when I don’t have anything to do, all I can think about is…is where I’ve been, and then everything starts feeling so…so—”

“Small,” he finished for her. He was well acquainted with feelings of wrongness given form all about him, and very familiar with the sensation of being trapped, caged, locked away somewhere he didn’t belong. He’d fought it almost every day since first feeling his curse envelop him in misty fingers. This was the world he’d chosen for Bae’s sake, the world he would never leave, but there were still days— _many days_ , he reluctantly admitted—when it felt alien and uncomfortable.

But why was _this_ Belle feeling such things? _The curse. It has to be the curse._

“Yes. Small.” Again, she smiled at him, and he began to wonder if she knew exactly what those smiles did to him. He was not used to receiving smiles, let alone smiles from _her_. Or rather, he _had_ not been used to them, and yet in the past week he had become all too used to them, had begun to expect them only to have that hope once more ripped away from him.

He knew she needed an answer, and he was torn, but really, there had never been any question, not around her. She wasn’t _his_ Belle, but she was Belle, and that was temptation and anguish and hope and loneliness all rolled into one, much too potent a concoction for him not to be affected. So he gave his own, watered down version of a smile and said, “Well, I’ve kept the position open for you all this time—I can’t very well give it away to someone else now, now can I?”

Suddenly, unexpectedly, she exploded into luminescent happiness—and surprise, as if she had doubted his answer—and she was dancing forward, was right in front of him, was so close he could smell her, all roses and crisp air and optimism. “Really? I can come back? When can I start? Tomorrow? Can I start tomorrow?”

“If you like,” was all he could manage to say, all his witticisms vanished in the face of her dazzling proximity, all his cleverness evaporated before the feel of her hands reaching out to fall over his atop his cane. Her fingers were slender and cool and fearless, placed on his as familiarly as if she did remember the past week and their time together in the Dark Castle.

At his astonished gaze, she yanked her hands away, though her expression didn’t waver. “Sorry,” she said unrepentantly. “I’m just so…so _happy_. You’ve made me so happy.”

Agony seared its way through him, the same torment he experienced with every thought of Bae and all he could have had and all he had lost. Had driven away and let go of. He hadn’t made Belle happy; he’d just set her down a path that was fated to lead to unhappiness and sorrow and pain. That was the curse he’d written, and he wondered if he could still make himself believe it was all Her Majesty’s fault.

Belle hesitated—he could see her deliberating, could see the thoughts turning in her head, and that was different, because before he’d never been able to guess what she was thinking, but maybe not so different after all, because he was still wholly shocked at what came next.

She stepped forward and hugged him.

Just a quick hug. Quick and almost polite, not at all intimate or romantic, just an outpouring of her emotion, so much more than her small body could contain. But she was touching him, her arms were around him, and all he could do was stand there, frozen, afraid to think lest he ruin this moment—quite possibly the last he would ever have.

She began to pull away only an instant later, and yet, strangely, she paused, lingered, her cheek against his shoulder. He had no idea what thoughts were in her head, but for himself, he could only imprint each detail into his excellent, untouched memory, could only ruthlessly stop himself from wrapping his arms around her lest he hold on too tightly and not let go and probably dip his head to kiss her. And there was no magic in this world, and anyway she did not love him, not anymore, so even with magic, True Love’s Kiss wouldn’t work and he’d only end up scaring her away.

So he didn’t move, and the moment ended when she stepped back. She looked somewhat thoughtful, but he could not decipher her expression when he was hastily trying to conceal just how shaken he felt.

“Tomorrow?” he heard her ask, and shook himself back to the moment.

“Seven o’clock,” he replied. Only years of experience allowed the words to emerge steadily, completely unaffected by what had just transpired between them.

“I’ll bring breakfast,” she promised with yet another smile, and then she was darting away on nimble feet, her quick hands on the doorknob. He would think she was afraid of him, would think she was running away, but that had always been his part to play, and she looked so _happy_. She paused at the door, looking back at him expectantly. “What do you want?”

Vaguely, he knew she was asking what he wanted for breakfast, but he couldn’t help himself. He might look like a man, but there was still a great deal of imp in him. So, very seriously, he replied, “Whatever you want to give me, I’ll take.”

She did not hear the encoded message, so she smiled— _another smile; the curse is definitely pushing things_ —and then the bell he’d bought and loathed and loved rang its silver laughter and she was gone, shadows once more rushing forward to drive away the brightness she’d so temporarily brought, reclaiming the interior of his shop.

It was a long time before he could bring himself to move and shatter the remainder of the spell she’d cast over him, and even then, he only moved to behind the counter, standing in front of the cash register out of habit. His thoughts were a chaotic, senseless jumble with none of the orderly cunning he displayed so prevalently while making his deals. It was easy to be the deal-maker when it was only him; so much harder when Bae or Belle were foremost in his thoughts.

And right now, there was nothing _but_ Belle in his mind.

Or at least, there wasn’t until Emma Swan barged into his shop with all her usual grace and courteousness.

“Gold!”

“Ah, Ms. Swan, what can I do for you?” He couldn’t help that his voice was a bit tight. She had nearly knocked his bell off its perch over the door, which was bad enough on an ordinary day, worse when it hadn’t been an easy day at all, not after telling Gypsy he had no further need of her services, not after staying all night in an empty house, sitting on the threshold of Belle’s room, leaned up against the doorframe, unable to enter the room and sully what was left of her presence with his dreams of revenge and retribution. Not after seeing Belle-that-wasn’t and smelling her scent and touching her. All in all, he thought he showed remarkable restraint in that he even bothered to respond to the woman who was supposed to be their savior.

She certainly didn’t look heroic at the moment, not with her eyes all wide and incredulous, reminding him of what he’d had these past days and now so abruptly no longer had. Needless to say, he didn’t appreciate the reminder. She’d do far better actually believing the lies she told Henry and letting herself begin to actually think about all the magical things she’d seen in Storybrooke rather than harassing him over a woman who was now buried beneath another.

“What do you mean?” she snapped. “What are _you_ even doing here? I thought you’d be banging Moe French’s door down, demanding he let you in on pain of eviction, trying to get in and see Belle and—”

“And what?” he interrupted before she could put any more ideas into his head. “Surely you wouldn’t have me forcing attentions on a young woman, would you, Sheriff?”

She scowled at him, and Gold was struck suddenly by the contradictions between this woman and the one who had stood there such short moments earlier. Emma, the savior, blonde and tall and stalwart, straight and defiant, brash and bold, and so very confused and painfully broken. And Belle, small and slender and curious, meek and strong, happy and unafraid, and so very brave and piercingly insightful. They had both stood in the same shaft of sunlight, but Emma stood regardless of sun or shadow whereas Belle had glowed with the sunbeams, embodying the sunlight. He wondered if it made him an even worse person than he already was that he would have given up the savior in a heartbeat should it spare Belle even an iota of pain.

“Something’s incredibly wrong here,” Emma declared, oblivious to his thoughts. “It’s like Belle doesn’t even remember the last week, as if she’s forgotten everything about us!”

“Yes, and I’m sure you’ve spoken to Dr. Hopper and he’s spun you some tale of traumatic memories and shock.” He couldn’t quite help the grimace that bared his teeth as he spoke the bitter words.

“Well, yes, but she’d been out a week without any adverse effects.”

“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” he said shortly, turning away and pretending to be filing something just as an excuse to busy his hands. “Something about not entirely believing she wasn’t hallucinating until last night, or delayed shock, or something of that caliber. Memories are tricky things.”

“Really.” Emma studied him a long moment, and if he had thought her and Belle different, he knew their thoughts on what they saw when they looked at him would be even more radically opposed. Still, he met her stare levelly. If there was one thing he’d learned in almost three decades as the feared Mr. Gold, it was how to meet a stare without flinching, without even the slightest movement or flourish or jig to give away his discomfort under close scrutiny. “I don’t get it, Gold. I thought you’d be the first one trying to figure this out. Trying to fight it.”

“She’s safe,” he countered, hoping forged expressions would cover the strain in his voice, “happily reunited with her father and unafraid to walk the streets. It seems to me I’ve done all I can for her.”

“Oh?” She smirked at him, and savior or not, he could have happily hit her. “You’re actually starting to believe your own lies, huh?”

“One man’s lie is another man’s truth,” he retorted easily. “Now if there’s nothing else…?”

“You love her, Gold!” Emma blurted as he turned away, stopping him in his tracks. He’d been so caught up in what a danger it was that Regina knew his weakness— _no, not a weakness! not Belle!_ —his vulnerability that he had not taken the time to consider just how easily the ‘good guys’ could use it against him too. Foolish of him, he supposed. “You love her, and she definitely felt _something_ for you—so why are you sitting around doing nothing? You’re not afraid, are you?”

They always went back to that same old tired refrain, and for all that the taunt was centuries old, it still possessed the power to pierce him to the core. He idly wondered if the word _coward_ was branded into his skin, invisible in the mirror to his own eyes and yet easily discernible to everyone else he met.

“I tried being brave with her,” he murmured, turned half away, “and look where it got me. And why the concern, Ms. Swan? Why so interested in my…happiness?” He sneered at her, more comfortable now that the offensive was his, the turnabout protecting him from further taunts.

“I don’t know.” Emma shifted, uncomfortable under his searing gaze. “It just…look, I was the first to be doubtful about you and Belle, but…but maybe everyone deserves a chance to be happy. Even a second chance. I certainly didn’t ever think I’d get a chance to get to know Henry, but here I am. And I know what I’d feel like if he ever forgot me, so…”

“Trust me, Ms. Swan,” he interrupted, his tone dark with cynical irony, the old dragon bristling, hackles raised, curled in around its weaknesses—no, its vulnerabilities. “You and I are nothing alike. And thanks for the concern, but there’s no need to cast your pity my way. I’ve survived many years without it, and I’m sure I’ll get by for years more to come.”

“Wow, you really are a piece of work, aren’t you?” Emma shook her head, oblivious to Gold’s quick flash of pain, quick burst of involuntary memory. _I’m a difficult man to love_. Her warm, slender body leaning back into him as if to ignore or disprove the words. It was an agonizingly exquisite memory, and he quickly shoved it away. Though not too far. He’d revisit it later, when he was alone. After all, someone had to keep their memories alive and safe.

“Anyway,” Emma was saying, “Henry told me he was talking to Belle an hour or so ago.” She paused, but Gold refused to take the bait. Refused to say a word even though his eyes were locked on her, hungry and yearning, waiting to catch up every word _she_ said, to savor them and turn them over and over in his mind, add them to _all things Belle_.

Emma softened, looking at him, and he _hated_ that she could see through him. Hated that he was we—vulnerable, as fragile as a cowardly spinner with a brave son, hated that Emma now knew the chink in this wounded dragon’s armor. “He said she told him she was working for you.”

Gold blinked. “She told Henry that?”

“Yeah.” Emma narrowed her eyes. “Why? She’s not?”

“Of course she is,” he snapped, not bothering to mention that she must have talked to Henry before she’d come to him. _Interesting that she just assumed I’d let her come back._ Must not have been surprise he’d seen in her eyes after all. “She worked for me before, you know, and now that she’s back, I see no reason for that to change. However, I assumed her father would have something to say about it. I’m sure you realize he’s not my biggest fan.”

“Can’t imagine why,” she said dryly before turning serious. “Maybe he did try to stop her from coming back, Gold. Maybe she thought it was _her_ choice. Maybe she _wants_ to come.”

“You’re a real glass-half-full person, aren’t you,” he said sarcastically.

Emma actually seemed to think about it. “Not usually, but…I guess you never know, right?”

She turned and walked away to the accompanying sound of a bell ringing, and Gold cursed her for leaving behind a chip of hope in his empty, battered, lonely heart.

 ---

He was no stranger to waiting. Rumplestiltskin had had centuries to perfect the art of patience, whole decades dragging by as slowly as lamed snails. Mr. Gold had had twenty-eight years to accustom himself to the practice of surviving paused time, sinking himself into the role of pawnbroker even as he struggled not to lose sight of Rumplestiltskin and his end goal, pretending he was merely practicing for life without magic once he found Bae. But for all his practice and experience, he didn’t think any day, any decade, any _century_ , had passed as slowly as the interminable hours between Belle’s departure and her arrival at seven the next morning.

He was at the pawnshop at the unseemly hour of six o’clock, pacing back and forth and then forcing himself to stillness, tidying up and then cluttering things back up so that there would be more for her to do when she came in, reason for her to stay later should she choose to do so. The seconds ticked by like eternities in miniature, all the more tortuous because he knew they would speed past like enchanted moments the instant she actually arrived.

But he was wrong. Because when she came in at 6:53, smiling shyly, a basket that emanated appetizing aromas swinging in her hand, time actually seemed to stop. Not like in those years waiting for the savior’s arrival, but actually, literally slowing around them, limning her profile like an aura, a vision of who she had been and who she now was, a premonition caught between two possible futures—one he could not bear and one he almost could not bear to hope for. For that one, stopped moment, anything and everything was possible, and he had only to reach out and pluck the future he desired most.

But he couldn’t see the future anymore, and his premonitions had failed him before, and he did not know how to ensure the future he wanted. So he only stood there until time once more caught up to itself, swirled voraciously in on the eye of the storm they had been standing in, catching them up once more in its relentless pace.

“Good morning, Miss French,” he said, congenially but distantly.

She smiled—and really, it was much too early to be resisting those already—and held up the basket. “I brought breakfast, as promised. I hope you like cinnamon muffins.”

Mr. Gold smiled.

It was so easy to spend time with her, so easy to fall back into their simple, wonderful style of give and take, of companionable quiet punctuated with witty jokes and stifled chuckles, of long conversations riddled with deep meanings and covered over with flimsy misdirections and abrupt interruptions. He wasn’t Rumplestiltskin anymore, was Mr. Gold, but in a way, he preferred it. He could feel himself sinking deeper and deeper into the role, casting aside Rumplestiltskin and ignoring the lightning crackling under his skin in favor of the quiet restraint Mr. Gold could give him, tied more tightly to the pawnbroker persona every time Belle spoke his new name.

Belle, cursed as the rest of the Storybrooke residents, hardly appeared to notice that there had been a long period of imprisonment between her varied stints as his caretaker. She settled in quickly, her innocence and optimism and idealism marred only by the flashes of fear that would sometimes ghost through her at the sound of a door closing behind her or the panic she so bravely fought to hide when people drew too near her, when doctors were mentioned, when she caught even the barest glimpses of pills. Gold noticed all those things—noticed _everything_ about her—and each time he saw the signs of her misuse, he threw himself ever harder into working to bring Regina down.

Kathryn was easy to abduct, and though it was slightly harder to find excuses to leave often enough to make sure she was well cared for, it wasn’t hard at all to make sure Snow’s timid shadow chose him as her attorney, even simpler to make sure Emma followed the signs he left for her. The wolf-girl being the one to find the heart hadn’t been planned, but he had to admit it was a nice touch; he wished he had thought of it himself.

Still, revenge did nothing to correct the wrongs that had been done to Belle, did nothing to take away her fear and the panic, didn’t erase the frightened uncertainty in her eyes every time she reached toward a doorknob. He couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t shown any of these signs while living with him that first week after he’d found her. He wondered if it was because she had felt safe with him, then cursed himself for fantastical thoughts he should have long since left behind in the ruins of reality.

She was different, of course. He did not, after spending time with her, think that it was her bravery the curse had taken from her— _she comes to work with me every day, after all_. No, it was something different, something much worse that had been stolen. That _he_ had stolen, because he was the one who had written the curse, the one who had ensured that it took from every person the very thing that would keep them from fighting against the curse and breaking through its dampening, dulling effects.

The curse had taken her insightfulness, her wisdom, her sharp mind. Oh, it was still there; she was still intelligent and clever and still read books as quickly as she could get her hands on them. But now her mind was more sluggish, less prone to making connections, always just a bit hesitant, weighted down with self-doubt and tentativeness, the results, he thought, of her being afraid that every thought she had might be sullied by insanity, which led to her second-guessing herself and over-thinking things until she failed to make a conclusion at all.

He still gave her books to read, still recommended others to her, but he had learned not to expect the same lively responses he would have once gotten from her when asking what she thought about them. That lesson had been pounded into him after asking her early on what she had thought of the first book he had loaned her and watching her try to gather her thoughts on it, watching her turn over the response in her mind and make sure there was nothing in it to get her locked away once more.

_Not Belle_ , he reminded himself, a sinking pit of disappointment opening up in his stomach.

“Ah.” He gave an imitation of a smile to let her off the hook. “Naturally.”

A flicker of hurt danced through her eyes, there for only an instant before she lowered her lashes and ducked her head back over her dust-cloth, but how could he fail to recognize it when he’d seen—inflicted—so much greater hurt to dance in those same—so different—eyes beneath a sunlit window in a shadow-darkened cell.

And curse _him_ , he could not bear to see her—even this _not_ -her—hurt, not at anyone’s hand, least of all his own. So he stepped up close to her, closer than he’d allowed himself to be since giving her this job she’d had in such a different world, and said the words that always came to mind every time he saw her: “I’m sorry. I just…I didn’t think you’d like the book.”

She knew he was lying—she always could tell—but she let him get away with it. “Actually, I did like it,” she corrected him shyly. “I thought the main character was much more intriguing than the average hero.”

“That’s because he wasn’t a hero, my dear,” Gold said, almost not even noticing the endearment anymore, not when it slipped out so often. “He was something of a wild card. No one ever knew which side he’d end up on.”

“I did,” she stated, and the unyielding certainty in her voice, in her eyes, in this different version of her, startled him. “I always knew he’d turn out good. He wouldn’t have been able to live with himself, wouldn’t have been able to look at himself in the mirror if he hadn’t. He just liked to pretend that he wasn’t good so he didn’t have to worry about the responsibility of needing to save the world.”

Gold stared at her, as he did so often, and the pit of disappointment had vanished, replaced by the dazed awe he’d felt so often before in the Dark Castle after it had no longer been as dark as its name suggested.

Belle might as well have remembered the Dark Castle, it seemed. Along with cleaning his shop without moving any of the important things, she always brought him lunch, too, and it was always food he liked, some of which hadn’t even been available in their native world. Gold would have suspected her of asking people what foods he favored since she never asked him, but he rarely ate out and nobody in town knew his preferences. Yet this new version of her read him and knew him and figured him out just as easily as his Belle had.

Of course, there were other moments when it was painfully obvious that she _didn’t_ remember their shared history. She remembered _a_ shared history, but not Rumplestiltskin and Belle’s. She remembered that he didn’t like to walk in the snow, remembered that he liked to anger the mayor, remembered that he preferred sugar in his tea to honey, remembered that he didn’t want her to do any of his filing, remembered that they had met after she’d spent all day looking for a job and hadn’t been able to find one and had slumped down beside him at the bar in Granny’s, spilling her woes to him, and that he’d offered her a job without ever giving her a reason why.

She didn’t remember a deal made to save a small village. She didn’t remember a betrothed or a rose or curtains and ladders and windows, didn’t remember a monster with scaled skin and glittering eyes and a lonely spinning wheel. She didn’t remember that she loved him, that he loved her, that he had given her freedom only to later throw her away. She didn’t remember moonlight kisses and shared reading by the fireside and her own pleasure the first time he’d given her the blue coat that she received with such shocked muteness the second time around.

She didn’t remember Rumplestiltskin, yet she knew him better than it seemed she should.

She was different, he finally concluded, watching her flit from counter to counter in his shop, a tiny, contented smile on her lips. She was different, but she was not diminished. _She should be_ , he thought; she should have been because that was what his curse did, reached into people and took their strengths away from them, and he thought that maybe if she were anyone else, he _would_ think her less. But she was not someone else. She was Belle, and that was enough, and she was no less beautiful for all that she occasionally stared off into space and forgot what she was saying, her sharp, intelligent mind slowed and muddied and turned hesitant. He loved her anyway, loved her still, and he was beginning to believe that he would love her in any world, in every world. In their world, in this magic-less world, in a world made up of drawings, in ancient worlds, in future worlds—in any and every one of them, he loved her. Because she was Belle, and that was enough.

He loved her, but she didn’t love him. And why should she? He was not an imp here, not a legend told in the darkest night hours, not a deal-maker whose very name made people shudder in terror, but he was feared nonetheless, a man isolated by a justly shady reputation and ruthless business arrangements, a man who had given up things like decency and honor in order to fulfill his own ends and accomplish his own goals. He was all of that, and much older than her besides. Not nearly as much older than her as Rumplestiltskin had been, but then, this world cared more about age gaps than Rumplestiltskin’s, which was an irony Gold didn’t care to appreciate. And he was her employer, too, her benefactor; she probably—his lip curled at the thought—even considered him her mentor or protector.

And lest he forget, he was also the man who had violently assaulted her father, and he doubted this version of Belle would be as understanding, or forgiving, as his had been. He wasn’t really sure if she remembered that he’d hurt her father, or if Maurice had mentioned it—and _he_ certainly wasn’t about to ask her. No, he had more than enough working against him already without throwing that snake into the mix.

Not that he wanted her to fall in love with him. Because he didn’t. He might have fallen in love all over again with her hesitant kindness and unexpected humor and sincere openness and gentle sweetness and forthright honesty, but that didn’t mean she should fall in love with _him_ again. Their current circumstances just proved that it was dangerous to be so vulnerable, to be so distracted. He couldn’t help loving her—wouldn’t let her be hurt again no matter the cost—but he knew she was far safer, far better off if she chose a different fate for herself this time around.

She was young and beautiful and infinitely worthy of being loved and so giving of herself—he had little doubt at all that she would find someone so much worthier of her than he had ever been or could ever be. Even letting her work for him was a mistake, casting the pall of his name over her; he knew some people refused to speak with her or _associate_ —how he hated that word!—with her simply because of where she worked. If that wasn’t proof enough that she needed someone other than him, he didn’t know what was.

And yet…and yet…he couldn’t stop himself from making quips just to make her laugh, couldn’t help but make faces at people walking by outside the shop just to hear her giggle, couldn’t refrain from giving her a soft _thank you_ every time she brought him some handmade lunch, couldn’t quite convince himself that she would never again look at him the way she had before, never again touch him so easily and freely and daringly, never again kiss him as if he were beautiful and valuable and worthy. He couldn’t do anything but mourn what had been every afternoon at four o’clock when she left him for the evening. Couldn’t do anything but try to stave off the familiar, agonizing ache when he himself left for the evening, back to a too-empty house, too-dark rooms, too-large dining table, too-quiet study, too-restless sleep.

And he couldn’t quite figure out whether he was being noble or cowardly in letting her go free—or was he throwing her away? He didn’t know, wasn’t sure which he was doing this time, which this qualified as, which _she_ would think it was.

He only knew that he didn’t want to lose her yet again, and so he kept a careful, non-threatening distance between them. Or he tried to anyway, but she didn’t make it easy.

“Mr. Gold?” He had stopped flinching when she called him that after the first several days, and by now, he thought it would have been strange to hear her call him anything else.

“Yes?” He didn’t turn from the delicate, close work he was doing on a Native American necklace of shell-blue. It had once belonged to a princess, who would doubtless be wanting it back if Emma ever got around to breaking the curse, and he’d put off repairing it for far too long. When the young princess came looking for it, he wanted to be able to ask for the compass she’d acquired from her True Love, and he’d stand a better chance of getting the compass if the necklace was in pristine condition. “It’s not lunch time, is it?”

“No.” Belle had been watching him work for the past several moments, though ostensibly she had come into the backroom to tidy up his clutter. It was a ruse they both allowed; he never let her mess with the arrangement of his things back here, and she always came back just to talk. Still, he was a bit surprised when he looked up at her long pause to find her studying him very intently from the other side of his worktable, her chin propped in one palm. “I just wanted to know…are you giving my father money?”

Gold very carefully set aside his tools, knowing the necklace could wait a bit longer. “I don’t have a reputation for _giving_ anyone anything. Surely you know that.”

“I do,” she replied calmly. “I’m well aware of your reputation, as well as the fact that you give away more than you want people to know.” She ignored his frown, but the quick flash of her dimples revealed that she’d noticed it. “But…but Dr. Salt makes house calls once a week to give me check-ups, and I’ve been seeing Dr. Hopper two times a week, and I know my father owed—maybe even _still_ owes—you money, and…and I think you have to be either paying for it all directly or giving my father the money to pay them.”

“An interesting theory,” he remarked noncommittally. He rearranged the necklace on the table, the shell in the center flashing opalescent lights across his eyes. He blamed that temporary blinding for his startlement when he blinked and saw Belle—no longer sitting across from him—slide onto the stool next to him. His mouth went dry when she met his eyes so earnestly, and he knew this Belle was different—he _knew_ that—but all he could see was his Belle striding toward him with a basket of straw, smiling and not unhappy and sitting so close to him.

He suddenly felt very, very afraid. Because he knew what happened after this. He knew what came after the kiss.

Not that he was going to kiss her. And she certainly wasn’t going to kiss him.

“But why would you give my father money?” Belle asked, her voice little more than a whisper. She was looking at him as if she could see the imp beneath the man, just as she had once seen the man beneath the imp. It was hard for him to properly appreciate the parallels, though, when he couldn’t look away from her. “Why would you give _me_ money? Especially when you…before, you thought I was only…thought I was trying to…that I was only here because my father owed you money and wanted more. You were so angry with me—so why would you now give me money?”

He had been afraid— _predictably_ —to look too closely at the new memories the curse had so helpfully given him when Belle French had taken the place of his Belle, afraid of what sordid history it would have spun for them. But at her words, the memories flashed through his mind, replaying as vividly and as faded as any real memory would have—looking through his contract with Moe French, hearing from the Dove that the florist needed more money, and then the horrible suspicion when Belle had come in and given him a wrapped gift, so eager to have him open it, moving so close to him, looking up at him with shining eyes. He hadn’t even gotten the wrapping paper all the way off before his fear had gotten the best of him and he’d sneered at her, accused her of trying to seduce him for her father’s sake, told her it wouldn’t work, that she’d never be able to get money off of him. He never had gotten to find out what present she’d been so excited to give him; it had fallen unnoticed to the snow-covered ground as she ran from his anger and his shop and his life.

She’d never come back. He’d been told she’d died, that she’d killed herself; the paper had run an obituary, her father had mourned, and Gold had regretted his actions, had hated that she’d run out into the cold winter’s night, out onto an icy street because of him. He had so savagely blamed the driver of the car she had supposedly jumped in front of because that was easier than blaming himself.

_Well,_ Gold thought, trying to avoid the pain the memories called up, both new and old, _I made the curse to give contrived memories. Nothing in it said they had to be terribly original._

Belle was looking at him now, though, waiting for his reply, and he didn’t know what to say. He should deny it again, should change the subject, should tell her a joke to throw her off the track. But she was looking at him, and there was the beginning of a spark in her silvery blue eyes, and she was so close, so earnest, so _brave_ , and he was so weak, so selfish, so _alone_.

“Maybe,” he murmured, “I’m trying to make up for past mistakes.”

He didn’t know why he had thought this version of Belle wouldn’t be as forgiving, because she was here even with those memories he’d just discovered, and her lips curled up in a small, breathless smile, and she was sitting so near, her face upturned to him. He didn’t know why he had thought it was a bad idea to be so close to her, why he had thought he shouldn’t let her know how much he cared for her—that he loved her—couldn’t remember his reasoning at all. Because she still smelled like roses and her eyes were still as crystalline blue as ever and this time, he could be brave, too. He leaned forward, one hand drifting away from the cold, hard shell necklace to cup her cheek, trace a light touch back until his fingers were stroking hair. Her breath misted over his cheek, and there was no turning back anymore.

He tilted his head and moved to kiss her, as wondrously and tentatively as if this were their first kiss—and technically, it was, because Mr. Gold and Belle French had never kissed before—and something giddy and elated and amazed erupted within his chest when she leaned forward to meet him.

Only their lips never met because the bell over his front door rang, jerking both of them slightly back.

Gold knew he should move away, should pretend this moment had never happened, but he couldn’t. Or rather, he didn’t _want_ to. Maybe Belle could find a hundred men—a thousand, _ten_ -thousand—worthier of her than him, but when had he ever let such a thing bother him? So long as she chose of her own free will to spend time with him every day, so long as she voluntarily sat so close to him, so long as she leaned forward to meet him when it was clear he was about to kiss her…he didn’t care if he was worthy of her. He didn’t care. Maybe that made him a bad man, but then, he’d already been that and she was still here with him.

So he let out a breath and leaned his brow against hers, and after only the slightest hesitation, she allowed her eyes to flutter closed, welcoming the physical contact.

“Gold!” Emma’s demanding voice—angry, from the sound of it, which wasn’t that uncommon since she’d come to town, let alone since Mary Margaret had been arrested—interrupted them once more. And he knew from experience that if he didn’t go greet her, she’d barge her way back here to find him. Despite her encouraging words several weeks earlier, he doubted she’d be happy to find him and Belle as they were now.

With a heavy sigh, he stood, allowing his hand to linger as he drew it away from her cheek. Belle smiled up at him, shyly biting her lip, and then handed him his cane. He wanted to say something, to take away the nervousness he could see in her, to ease her tentativeness—wanted to tell her he loved her—but he didn’t. Maybe he was afraid, and maybe it was the wrong time, and maybe it didn’t even need to be said. Regardless, he just gave her a smile, small but real, and strode out into the front of the shop, taking up his usual post behind the counter.

Emma was more than angry; she was livid. Her body sizzled with energy, every muscle rigid and tense; her eyes were narrowed and bored into him the moment he came into view; even her hair seemed on the verge of sparking into flames. Her fury was always interesting to behold, swinging as it did back and forth between icy and fiery, flames roaring up only to turn into frost only to be consumed in embers that birthed ice.

“Ms. Swan,” he said, not quite politely, but then, she had come at a rather inopportune moment. “What can I do for you?”

“How could you do this?” she demanded, tossing a handful of folders containing files down on the countertop before him, letting them sloppily slide out of their piles. Gold calmly reached out to neaten them before opening the top one to find out what all the fuss was about. He knew it wasn’t about the case; he’d played his part to perfection, and he would have known if anyone had found Kathryn where he’d stashed her.

His silence apparently only further infuriated Emma, and he idly wondered if she’d start believing in the curse should she accidentally set his shop on fire. He wasn’t hopeful, not after even her recent foray with the Mad Hatter hadn’t convinced her.

“I warned you, Gold!” she snarled, bracing herself on the counter to lean in threateningly. “I actually trusted you, you sick, twisted _monster_! I actually thought this could be something! But all along you were just playing your puppet-master game! I knew you were controlling and manipulative, but this is low even for you! And here I thought Regina was the worst of the two evils!”

Gold looked up from what appeared to be Belle’s medical files and opened his mouth to fire off a sarcastic retort, but he was stayed by the sound of Belle asking, “What’s going on?” as she moved to join him behind the counter, glancing curiously down at the files, staring warily up at Emma.

The sheriff instantly dampened her flames and warmed her ice, looking suddenly very sad and helpless. She shot a venomous glare Gold’s way, then once more softened for Belle. “I’m so sorry, Belle,” she said quietly.

“Sorry for what?” Belle questioned.

And the floor dropped out from under Gold at the sight of his own signature. On the bottom of the papers Emma had brought. On the power of attorney papers. On the papers committing Belle into the hospital’s dubious care.

His signature.

Emma was explaining, gently but brutally honest, telling Belle that Mr. Gold, hated pawnbroker and malicious lawyer, had decided she was crazy and single-handedly consigned her to years—more years than she knew—illegally locked up in a basement. That Mr. Gold was the cause of her damaging imprisonment and her fear of locks and her terror of pills and her loss of years.

And all Gold could do was stare down at the signature and tell himself that he had known this was coming. He had _known_ what came after the kiss. _Known_ that it would ever and always play out this way. He would let her in, helpless to stop her from finding and reawakening and inhabiting his heart, and he would soften for her, and he would give in to temptation and bend to kiss her, and then always, _always_ , something would happen to rip it all away from him. He had known better than to let her think she could love him, to think it could ever work out between them, to begin to let himself hope again. Curse or not, the world would always disappoint, always steal, always betray, and he should have learned his lesson a long time. Shouldn’t have to keep learning it over and over again.

He should have known by now that she was too good to be true.

“No.” Belle’s quiet denial startled him out of his daze. She was staring down at the papers he’d found and aligned in perfect, damning order. Her left hand was trembling on the edge of the counter, her right stuffed in her pocket as it so often was. But her voice was steady, firm, unequivocal. “No. He wouldn’t. He didn’t.” Yet when she finally looked at him, there was panic encroaching on the firmness in her gaze, doubt lurking in the corners of her mouth, terrible suspicion threatening the edges of her mask. He loved her just for trying to present a strong façade in front of the sheriff in an attempt to protect him, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough.

“Would you?” she whispered when he met her gaze.

“Not in the way you think,” he said, the head of his cane surely buckling from the strength of his grip. His expression was perfectly calm, though. He had known this was coming, after all; he would lose her, every time, and though he would never grow used to it, he knew to expect it.

And he deserved it.

No, he hadn’t signed these papers, not even in his curse memories, but he might as well have. He was the reason she had been locked up, his _association_ with her painting a target on her back that Regina couldn’t leave alone.

She blanched, her face pale. “But…” And then sickening anguish, terrible sadness he would have done anything to alleviate except that it was he who had caused it. “The mistakes you wanted to make up for?”

“This isn’t one of them,” he tried to tell her, but it must have come out wrong because she went completely white, and he had seen this expression on her face before, in a cell, turning his back to hide his own anguish, vomiting forth the lie that power meant more to him than she did.

Belle’s eyes, so much bluer without that happy spark to add that silver sheen to them, darted back down to the papers and the stark signature she couldn’t mistake, not after weeks of working in his shop and watching him sign contracts. She took in a deep, shuddering breath, her right hand withdrawing from her pocket in an oddly purposeful movement. “I don’t understand why you would do this. Is it because you thought I was trying—” She gasped, her eyes flying back to his, and Gold had to close them so as to avoid her gaze.

Because he’d just seen these implanted memories for the first time and they were still horribly fresh in his mind. The moment when he dropped her gift as if it meant nothing. The ugly sneer on his face as he threw the savage accusations at her. And his voice cruelly telling her that she must be crazy if she thought she had a chance of ever succeeding in seducing him for his money. It’d been the last time he’d seen her because she’d been locked away only hours later.

“Belle,” he said softly, and she stiffened, her tears pushed back before that iron will of hers.

She canted her chin in the air, then, and Gold held his breath. Hoping, hoping, _hoping_ that she would choose to stand her ground and force him to an accounting as she had done once before, that she would call him on this, demand an explanation. _Anything_ , just so long as she stayed where she was and let him try to explain.

But the vaunted savior he himself had gifted with powers born straight from true love stepped in and ruined everything, touching a hand to Belle’s elbow, distracting her, making that pointed chin drop and painfully blue eyes glaze and steady hands start to tremble.

“Belle, you don’t have to stay here. Trust me, I’ve already started the paperwork on getting power of attorney back in your hands.” Emma shot another black glare Gold’s way. “I’m also looking into pressing charges for illegal seizure of her rights and incarceration. And you may be a lawyer, Mr. Gold, but—”

“I won’t fight you on this,” he interrupted distantly. “If these papers are even valid, I’ll sign the rights over as soon as you can get me the paperwork.”

Belle looked up at him, a tiny glimmer of hope there, and the savior— _or maybe I should switch her title to something a bit more destructive!_ —interrupted again. “Oh, nice try, Mr. Gold. But pretending to play the gallant can’t erase the crimes you’ve committed against this girl.”

Gold felt a surge of fury roil within him. Belle wasn’t a _girl_! She was a woman, a beauty, a princess, a warrior—she was _everything_ , and to hear Emma patronize her like that enraged him. Or maybe it was the entire situation that enraged him. He was beginning to think that his plot with Kathryn was far, far too good for Regina. He was beginning to wonder—in the very, very back of his dark mind—if the curse wasn’t more trouble than it was worth.

But Belle was watching, and he couldn’t unleash his fury on the savior for all the terrible trouble she was causing, so he gritted out, “Just bring me the paperwork, and this will all be straightened out.”

Belle didn’t meet his gaze, but she was watching him from beneath lowered brows, and Gold held himself still, rigid, praying she’d believe him. His Belle would have, but this wasn’t his Belle, as he kept reminding himself, and he didn’t know what would happen, didn’t know if he’d be relegated to the parts of her mind still filled with fears of locked doors and forced drugs or if the remnants of their past life still floating somewhere inside her were enough to ensure she gave him the benefit of the doubt.

“Come on, Belle.” Emma wrapped a protective arm around Belle’s shoulders, and Gold had to lean all his weight onto his cane to keep from hurling himself at her and tearing her off Belle. “I already called your father to let him know what was going on. He’s going to meet us at the station.”

Shrugging, Belle cringed away from Emma’s touch, but she didn’t take a step toward Gold, didn’t meet his eyes. “I…” Her voice was tiny and drained. Gold flinched at the broken sound of it. “I think I need a bit of time off. If that’s okay.”

He swallowed, felt shards of glass slide down his throat, slicing ribbons through him. “Of course. About two weeks, I’m assuming?”

She jerked. Her face crumpled as if she might let go of the tears she’d been restraining. But changed or not, she was still brave, still strong, and she didn’t lose her dignity. “I guess,” she said colorlessly, and then she turned her back on him and walked away.

Gold watched her go, his face set, his leg burning with all the agony he couldn’t allow himself to feel.

The bell shook, rang, tinkled, and then fell silent as the door closed behind her.

Gold was left alone in his shop, surrounded by the treasures of a whole world, all of them too valuable and important to destroy in a fit of rage and grief and guilt and regret and overwhelming sorrow. So he simply stood there, a broken man in a tiny shop in an alien world with not even a heart to call his own, and this time he hadn’t even gotten the kiss to tide him through the darkness.

He did not weep. When everything one loved was gone, there were no tears left to shed.

There was only emptiness.

\---


	11. Out Of Faith

\---

It was a rare day when the dogs at the shelter couldn’t charm even the barest smile from David, but this was one of those days. In fact, the past few weeks had been filled with those kind of days.

_Hard to smile, even at a puppy, when the woman I love is on trial for the murder of my wife_.

Even the thought was hard for him to comprehend. He’d been trying for months now to make himself believe that he really was David Nolan, that he really was married to Kathryn, that this really was his life. Trying—and failing. Because it didn’t feel like his life, not when Kathryn was trying so hard and he wasn’t, not when he’d done what he should have from the beginning and told Kathryn he was wrong for her, not when Mary Margaret told him she couldn’t be with a liar, and certainly not when he’d heard the news that his wife’s heart had been found in a box buried in the woods. A box that belonged to Mary Margaret.

It seemed that everything had been spiraling deeper and deeper out of control since he’d woken from that coma. _Or even before, really_ , he thought, _since most people probably wouldn’t consider a coma a good thing._ Truthfully, though, the idea of sleeping for a hundred years was becoming ever more attractive. If he did go to sleep again, would Mary Margaret wake him with a kiss?

It wasn’t looking likely, he had to admit, and that was why even the beautiful cocker spaniel he’d been pampering lately couldn’t make him smile. The antics of the tall mutt in the next cage over once would have had him chuckling in normal times—such as those were—but today all it did was remind him how little he had to laugh about. The female Dalmatian he’d been trying to convince Archie to adopt as company for Pongo whined and pressed against the confines of her kennel, licking the hand he offered, and still David couldn’t summon the merest ghost of a smile.

If a miracle didn’t happen soon, Mary Margaret was going to be punished for something he was sure she hadn’t done. He actually wished that Archie’s hypnosis _had_ revealed that it was David himself who’d hurt Kathryn, just to save Mary Margaret from whatever was going to happen to her. Better yet, he wished Kathryn were alive and well, living in Boston, making a new life for herself, hopefully one full and happy and containing everything she desired and deserved.

Unfortunately, that was about as impossible as the many animals around him pulling a smile from him.

“Hello?”

The tentative call in a woman’s voice from the foyer of the pet shelter attracted David’s attention, and with an absentminded pat to the small white puppy that had been peremptorily claimed by a young red-headed girl saving her pennies, he left the kennels, closing the door behind him. The shelter received quite a few visitors—though very few people actually seemed to adopt any of the animals—but David hadn’t seen the young woman standing awkwardly at the counter come in before.

“Good morning,” he greeted her politely, keeping his voice soft. The girl looked almost as skittish as the cocker spaniel had been when she’d first been brought in with the mutt. “How may I help you? Looking to adopt?”

“Oh, uh, good morning. No, not…not really.” The girl, more like a young woman, twisted her hands together in front of her, and her eyes darted all about, to the mural of the animal-decorated trees on the wall behind him, to the silver letters spelling out Storybrooke Pet Shelter, to him, standing motionless so as not to startle her. “I…I was actually hoping that I could get a job. Here. If that’s all right.”

“Oh.” From somewhere, David dredged up a small smile for her. “I actually don’t handle any of that, but I can get you an application and give it to Mr. Fagin for you, if you’d like.”

She looked a bit nonplussed, but she did take a small step forward. When her eyes darted up to meet his, David managed another friendly smile. He knew who she was, of course. Everyone in town knew of Moe French’s daughter, who’d been rescued from the hospital where she’d been imprisoned by a jealous nurse for no one knew quite how many years. The young woman who’d managed to reveal a different side of the nefarious, infamous Mr. Gold and who had returned to working for him as if the intervening years had never happened. Belle French—David had heard all about her, the stories swirling about Storybrooke like another layer of fog, but despite the fact that she was the only piece of gossip that could preclude the slanderous, hurtful rumors about him and the mess he’d made of his life, he had felt only vague curiosity and some measure of sympathy for her. He well knew what it was like to wake up to a life that didn’t seem to make any sense and find yourself already mired in currents you hardly remembered, and he wouldn’t wish that on anyone, least of all this young beautiful woman, looking so scared and tremulous.

“I’m David Nolan, by the way,” he offered, holding out a hand for her to shake only when he was sure she wouldn’t flinch away from it.

“Belle French,” she returned, and there was a smile on her face now, as she took his hand, making her look less like a young girl and more like a beautiful woman. “And thank you. Do…do you think he’ll give me a job here?”

“I’m sure he will,” David asserted firmly, digging around the mess his boss left of the front desk until he found a somewhat wrinkled application. “I didn’t even have to fill one out myself. I just came in, told him I needed a job, and the next thing I knew, I was signing the papers. Mr. Fagin likes to take in strays,” David added without thinking. Belatedly, realizing how she might take that, he winced and looked up at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that in—”

“No, don’t be sorry.” There was laughter bubbling up beneath her words, and she didn’t look scared or hurt or broken anymore. She looked radiant and cheerful and whole, and David was surprised by the complete transformation. “That’s probably the most apt description of myself I’ve ever heard.”

“Well then, this is probably the right place for you,” David said, and his smile was genuine and unforced. He looked down at the application in his hand, debated with himself for a moment, then set it down and looked back up at Belle.

Why ever she was here now, looking for a job when everyone knew she worked for Mr. Gold, wasn’t his business; what was his business was the sadness even her radiant transformation couldn’t obliterate. And he might not be able to do anything right concerning Mary Margaret, might not be able to save her from her current situation, but at least he could help this one girl, who’d been almost as mistreated as the woman David loved.

“You know,” he said companionably, “I don’t think you need to fill this out either. If I know Fagin, he’d probably be more put out by having to make out another application form than me hiring you right now.”

“R-really?” Belle’s eyes went wide and luminescent. “Are you sure you won’t get in trouble?”

David actually chuckled. “I’m sure. But here, I’ll call and ask him. If you want, you can go through that door and start introducing yourself to the dogs. The cats are a bit more iffy—we just got in a couple pretty grouchy Siamese.”

“All right.” Belle bit her lip but didn’t hesitate in walking toward the kennels as David picked up the phone and dialed his boss, knowing the absentminded man would be over at the vet’s ineptly trying to finagle a few more free vaccinations for the puppies.

As David had expected, Fagin was more than happy to offer the young woman a job, and David didn’t even feel guilty for ‘forgetting’ to mention the name of his new employee. He was pretty certain Fagin’s generosity would have ensured Belle’s new job anyway, but all the same, best not to bet against the fear Mr. Gold inspired.

When he hung up, David quietly slipped into the backroom with the kennels. He wasn’t surprised to see the dogs all eagerly courting Belle’s attention; he _was_ a bit surprised that out of all the dogs, she’d chosen to pet an old, mangy looking hound that was usually somewhat snappish but was now leaning up into her soft caresses as eagerly as if he were the white pup.

“Bruno, huh?” David asked, leaning against the doorway and sticking his hands in his pockets.

Belle glanced up, a soft look deepening the corners of her mouth. “He has a lot of character.”

“Well, it looks like he likes you, because usually? Usually, he likes to demonstrate his ‘character’ by snarling warnings to anyone who comes too close.”

“He’s just scared,” Belle said quietly, looking back down at the dog, who met her gaze with dark soulful eyes.

“I guess so,” David said softly. He knew there was a subtext to the conversation, knew there had to be a reason she was here, sad and uncertain and talking about Mr. Gold without once uttering his name, but it was none of his business. So he just raised his eyebrows and said, “So, you want me to show you what your new job is?”

Belle’s eyes leapt to his. “I…you got me the job?”

“What did I tell you? No application necessary.”

“Thank you!” One hand on Bruno’s brow, Belle slipped her other into her pocket, an oddly meaningful gesture when combined with the suddenly wistful look tightening her eyes. “I don’t…how can I thank you?”

“Well, to start with, you can take care of Bruno from now on,” David teased, wanting to banish as much of her sadness as he could, at least momentarily. The animal shelter had once been a place where he could forget his troubles with Kathryn and Mary Margaret; maybe it could be the same for Belle, providing her some solace from thoughts of her imprisonment or Mr. Gold or whatever else it was bothering her. “Now, why don’t I introduce you to everyone?”

“I’d like that,” Belle said shyly, and she gave Bruno a last pat before turning to the other dogs.

 ---

Belle settled in easily at the shelter, quietly and good-naturedly following David about, listening to his directions, and insinuating herself into the lives of the animals they kept, even managing to charm the Siamese cats well enough to prevent them from terrorizing the other cats. It was nice to have someone else working there, too, someone besides the eccentric and often distracted Fagin, and David got along well with Belle, though he was careful not to press her. More than enough people were already whispering about what could have finally caused her to leave Mr. Gold or just exactly what kind of work she’d done for the pawnbroker before she’d walked away from him, and David did what he could to give her hours free of that kind of speculation and gossip.

Or at least he did at first. And then Kathryn was found alive, and for a while, David stopped noticing anything, stopped doing anything more than showing up for work—he thought when he was supposed to, but maybe not—and drifting through the workday and going back home before leaving once more to try to hunt down Mary Margaret and apologize once again. He knew it was his fault—his fault for storming out of his and Kathryn’s house so angry he walked right into a blizzard, his fault for forgetting her and not being able to love her the way she deserved, his fault for leading Mary Margaret on when he was married, his fault for lying to Kathryn about Mary Margaret, his fault for not trusting Mary Margaret. Although sometimes, in rare moments when he forgot that it was his fault, he played that memory Dr. Hopper had helped him recover over and over in his head, trying to pierce through the layers of fog surrounding it, trying to interpret what it could possibly mean, trying to figure out why Mary Margaret would have said she was going to kill someone when he knew, he _knew_ , that she could never do such a thing.

But Mary Margaret wouldn’t see him, Emma wouldn’t let him in, the people in town wouldn’t forgive him, and it seemed the only two individuals who didn’t hate him were the wife he had betrayed and the woman he had abandoned to the new job he had helped her get. If he had been a more cynical man, the irony probably would have amused him, but he wasn’t and so it only depressed him to the point where he was beginning to think there was no way out of this mess. Maybe Kathryn had had the right idea all along and Boston was the answer.

But for some reason he couldn’t quite explain, even the thought of leaving Storybrooke was hard to keep hold of, and for many reasons he _could_ explain, the thought of leaving Mary Margaret was agonizing.

He was reminded once again rather abruptly of his young coworker, however, when Mr. Gold came striding into the shelter one late afternoon after Belle had already left for her twice-weekly appointment with Dr. Hopper. David glanced up from the registration forms he’d been filing at the sound of the distinctive cane—everyone in town knew what that tapping noise heralded—and felt his eyebrows rise almost to his hairline. He was suddenly glad that Belle wasn’t there, because lost as he might have been in his own problems, he hadn’t missed the quiet she carried around with her, the wistful look she’d sometimes get when glancing in the direction of the pawnshop, and the way she’d perk up and look to the door every time she heard something remotely resembling the tapping sound now making its way toward David.

“Mr. Gold?” David said, trying and failing to hide his surprise beneath courtesy.

Mr. Gold came to a halt at the counter and laid his free hand, gloved against the late chill, on its surface. “Mr. Nolan,” he greeted him, and there was nothing overtly hostile in his tone just as there was nothing overtly fragile about the way he darted careful glances around, as if looking for something— _someone_. Nothing overtly there, but David could sense it all the same.

Mr. Gold was much shorter and slighter than David, and yet there was a sense of coiled power about him, ruthlessly restrained, and if David had had to describe him in only one word, it would have been _focus_. He had a feeling that Mr. Gold rarely, if ever, said or did anything he did not plan on saying or doing, anything that would not help him accomplish whatever his goals were, as if he had long ago stripped away everything but that focus and what it was directed toward.

So David hesitated, but he did end up giving the pawnbroker a small smile. He’d had only a couple run-ins with the older man—mostly harmless—and he knew Mr. Gold had offered to represent Mary Margaret in court free of charge; in David’s book, that counted for a lot. “You do know my name is David, right?” he offered.

Mr. Gold’s smile was curiously sardonic. “That’s a matter of debate.” David frowned, but Mr. Gold was already continuing on, impatient to be done with the formalities. “Are you the only one here?” He took the question as excuse to look around a bit more noticeably, and David thought he seemed torn between relief and disappointment when Belle didn’t spring up before him out of thin air.

“Are you looking to adopt a pet?” he asked instead of answering the question.

With a snort, Mr. Gold shook his head. “No, and you and all your charges can breathe a sigh of relief that I am not.”

“Ah.” Truthfully, David had been expecting this moment for a while, had been waiting for the day Mr. Gold learned where Belle had gone to work after leaving his shop, and though it was coming much later than he had anticipated, that didn’t change what he knew he’d do for the quiet, withdrawn woman who always had a brave smile and a word of encouragement to offer him. “Then you’re here for Belle.”

Pain flashed across Mr. Gold’s face, subdued and startling and deep, before being quickly wiped away, concealed behind the imitation of a smile so poor it failed even before it began. “Well, I do have a bit of an investment in her.”

David felt his expression shift into one of warning. “Mr. Gold—”

“I just want to see if she needs a—anything.” Mr. Gold licked his lips, bracing up the façade over whatever he was concealing, shifting his left hand off the counter to join his right atop his cane.

“She seems happy enough,” David said cautiously, wishing he had asked Belle what she wanted him to tell the pawnbroker when he came looking for her. “The animals all like her and she loves working with them.”

“Naturally,” Gold said quietly before gathering himself once more, marshaling his defenses, that focus David had never seen him without seeming to have been dampened just a bit, pushed slightly off-kilter. “I don’t know if you’re aware, Mr. Nolan, but Mr. Fagin has taken several…unwise…loans over the past several years, and he’s been using this shelter as collateral.”

David swallowed, suddenly very worried for Belle. _That sounds a little ominous_ —and it, unfortunately, fit with the rumors of the infamous deal-maker. Gold’s influence wouldn’t hurt him, David was pretty sure, not if he really did get up the courage to leave—not if he actually did give up on Mary Margaret—but Belle would still be here, alone and left to whatever Mr. Gold had planned for her.

“No, I wasn’t aware of that,” he said when Mr. Gold paused, seeming to be awaiting an answer.

“Yes, well, Mr. Fagin’s never been what one could call business-savvy.” Mr. Gold met David’s eyes and let out an impatient sigh, that fragility completely banished for the moment. “You can stop looking so worried, Mr. Nolan; I’m not here to threaten you.”

“Are you here to threaten Belle?” David asked bluntly, his voice steady, tone clear.

Mr. Gold’s expression hardened, turned brittle, his features suddenly sharper and more intent, reclaiming that focus. “I may not be a prince charming like you, but I do know a little something about what to do and what not to. I want to make sure Miss French is all right. Since I, in effect, own this shelter, I can see to it that she—and you—are being paid well, or to correct the problem if you’re not.” He took a deep breath, seemed to brace himself, asked hesitantly, “ _Is_ she all right?”

For a moment, David waited, an internal debate raging inside him, but finally he softened to the man standing in front of him. After all, Gold had helped Mary Margaret, and he did seem to be going out of his way to try and help Belle. “I think she’s fine, Mr. Gold. Mr. Fagin’s plenty generous, and frankly, I think Belle only wants a job to keep busy. Her father’s shop seems to be doing very well lately and—” He stopped at the suddenly calculating, almost smug gleam in Mr. Gold’s dark eyes. “Oh. He owes you too, I take it.”

“Everyone does, Mr. Nolan,” Gold said neutrally, and David could have sworn he was using his formal name just to get a rise out of him. He refused to take the bait, though; he recognized armor when he saw it, and Mr. Gold was sheathed from head to toe in it, wrapped in layers of expensive suit and vest and tie and shoes and striking out with the only weapons he had left to him. If he had ever doubted that Belle’s attachment was one-sided, David didn’t wonder anymore.

“Well,” he said calmly, “we’re really fine, but…thank you.”

“Here.” Using quick, economical movements, as if afraid to stop and second-guess himself, Mr. Gold pulled out a business card and handed it to David over the counter. “If she ever needs anything, anything at all—if she mentions being scared by someone, or…or anything, just drop me a call. Please. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention any of this to Miss French. No need to drop back in on her life when she’s gone to all the trouble of leaving mine.”

And this time, there was no missing the brokenness lurking beneath the armor. As if realizing that, Mr. Gold hastily turned and began to walk away, his cane clicking its familiar pattern against the floor.

But David had one more question for him.

“And what do you expect to get out of all this?” he called after him, stilling the pawnbroker mid-step. “It’s never something for nothing, isn’t that what you tell people?”

“Of course it isn’t,” Mr. Gold said, head tilted to speak over his shoulder, his gaze not reaching David. There was a long moment, drawn out and breathless, when David thought that was all the older man would say, but then Mr. Gold gave a minute shrug and spoke as walking to the door, “But this is the one case in which _I_ owe someone more than _they_ owe me. I’m just paying my debt, as it were. Good day, Mr. Nolan.”

Reassured, David smiled at the pawnbroker. “It’s David.”

Gold, his back against the door to push it open, gave David a dry, colorless smile and a tiny shake of his head, and then he was outside and the door closed behind him, leaving David perplexed and a bit bemused.

 ---

For days afterward, David wrestled with whether or not he should mention the encounter to Belle. Mr. Gold had, in a strange way unique to him, confided in David, and it didn’t feel right to break that confidence, but then, David hadn’t exactly been good at choosing what the _right_ thing was lately, and Belle was so _sad_.

Oh, she smiled, and she hummed while she worked, and she paid special attention to all the animals, and she kindly and willingly picked up whatever he forgot to do when worrying about first Kathryn and then Mary Margaret. She never spoke a word of complaint or grew angry when he showed up late, and when he remembered to be there and actually thought to speak, she was easy to talk to. But she was sad nonetheless, withdrawn, somber when he wasn’t talking to her, melancholy when she spent time with Bruno, often distracted by staring into space or clumsy when she got to thinking instead of looking where she was going, and always jumping in surprise whenever he brought up Mr. Gold’s name.

Eventually, he decided that it was best he not tell her that Mr. Gold was trying to act as her guardian angel, ready to step in with money or maybe even a violent cane should she need it. That didn’t, however, mean that he had to avoid the subject entirely.

Belle often brought in lunch for the two of them or snacks for him to take home, and no matter how she insisted it was no bother, he hadn’t failed to notice that her cheerfulness always faded away when she pulled out a container full of casserole or a bag of artfully sliced sandwiches or a plate of cookies for them to share, or that her sadness seemed most prominent when she was feeding him. He always tried, in those moments, to be as helpful and encouraging to her as she so often was to him.

And finally, one evening—late because they’d stayed to help calm the dogs after they’d panicked at the thunderstorm outside—David decided to bring up the subject he’d been trying to broach since Mr. Gold’s visit three days before.

“You know,” he said conversationally, looking down at the meatloaf in the green container he held, keeping his tone soft and non-threatening since he’d noticed her sending several nervous glances to the closed doors, “I definitely appreciate your culinary skills—and the fact that you share them with me—but you really don’t have to.”

“I want to!” she assured him, as she always did, her own container of food barely touched.

“But it always makes you so sad,” he pointed out.

“Oh, it’s not you!” she asserted hastily, her eyes flying up to meet his for the first time since she’d suggested the late dinner.

David nodded, unsurprised, trying to figure out how to bring up Mr. Gold without spooking her. He kept his attention on his food, kept his voice quiet, kept his words cautious. “You used to bring food for him, didn’t you?”

He didn’t have to say anymore, didn’t have to specify what _him_ he was talking about. They both knew that there was only one _him_ for Belle.

She looked down at her own dinner, playing her fork through the ketchup-laden mass. “Yeah.” She shot him a hesitant smile up through her lashes, and David noticed the light, pretty flush touching her cheekbones. “He forgets to eat all the time, you know. It’s not always because he’s busy either, no matter what he says; it’s as if he’s just never before realized that people _need_ to eat to keep going. Before”—and she didn’t need to elaborate on that either, because for Belle, _before_ always referred to the time before her cruel and unjust incarceration—“I would always bring him lunch, and he was always so _surprised_. _Always_. Even when I brought it for him every single day, he never stopped being surprised. As if no one ever gave him anything without wanting something in return. Which is probably why he couldn’t believe that I really wanted—” She cut herself off very suddenly, biting her lip and setting aside her container. David kept his own in hand, though, despite the fact that he was finished, just as a safe place to keep his eyes, a safe way to busy his hands.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

He glanced up to see Belle blushing. “For what?”

“For going on like that.” She shrugged, a weary slant to her features. “I know people don’t like to hear about him. They don’t like _him_.”

“Hey.” Gently, David reached out and placed a tentative hand on her wrist, purposely meeting her gaze. “ _You_ like him. He matters to you, and that makes him important.”

Her smile was small, but it was blinding, cutting through the dismal gloom the storm cast even across the inside of the shelter, so bright and iridescent that David thought it might be the first real smile he’d ever seen from her. “Thank you, David.”

“So.” He finally set aside the remainder of his own food and revealed just how much of his attention was on her. It was certainly better than dwelling on his own problems and the fact that he’d rented a room at Granny’s since Kathryn had checked herself out of the hospital that morning. “Why are you _here_?”

Her smile slipped, but she didn’t pretend to misunderstand his question. When she answered, she spoke slowly, choosing her words as if they were foreign, as if she’d never tried to vocalize any of this before. “The sheriff said he did something, something terrible. And I believed her. At least, I did for a moment. But I don’t think he did do it. He couldn’t have.” Her eyes met David’s, almost pleading, though he didn’t know what she thought he could give her. “He couldn’t have. He’s always been so protective of me, for as long as I can remember, always so quiet but unrelenting in his defense of me. He couldn’t have done what she said he did. But…but I believed it for a moment, and I asked him if he’d done it, and…” Pain tightened her eyes, pursed her lips, obliterating all hint of her dimples. “And he looked so _resigned_. So tired. As if he knew…knew I wouldn’t believe in him. Knew I wouldn’t stand by him.”

Her breaths came quicker, tumbling out of her mouth, mixed and interspersed with her words, all of them washing over David, pummeling him like heavy rapids in a cold river, and he sat there, frozen. “It was so terrible, that look on his face, and yet…yet I wanted to hear him say he didn’t do it. Just once. I just—just that once—wanted him to say I didn’t have anything to worry about. And I know that’s selfish, but…I feel _angry_ that he couldn’t tell me, couldn’t just give me that. But I feel guilty too, that I didn’t believe in him, that I put that look on his face by asking him. You know?”

He felt as if he were a hundred years old, stiff and aching and so very breakable, all but expected his joints to creak as he turned to meet her beseeching gaze. “I’m…” He had to pause and clear his throat. “I’m not really the best person to ask. Not this. Not now.”

Her stare turned inquisitive, her hand coming out to mimic his earlier touch, hovering over his wrist without quite touching before she retracted it and brought it back to her lap.

“I doubted Mary Margaret for a moment, too,” he admitted, afraid to put it into words, unable to resist the chance to finally try to make sense of it all, try to pour out the jumble in his head and let it collect into straight lines and convoluted logic. “I had these blackouts, you see, and I was so afraid that _I_ had done it, had killed my own wife, and that Mary Margaret was about to have to pay for something that _I’d_ done. So I went to Dr. Hopper and had him hypnotize me. And the memory I saw…it was so _damning_. So I asked her, and like you, I just wanted to hear her say it. Just wanted her to say something I could use to get rid of that awful image in my head.”

He swallowed again, choked back regret and guilt…and the anger Belle had mentioned, not quite fully formed, tiny and stilted and choked off, but there. “But she didn’t look resigned,” he said, closing his eyes and wishing he could so easily flee the memory of her expression and words hurled at him like stones. “She looked…betrayed. And angry. _Furious_. And I’ve tried to apologize. I’ve tried to make it up to her, but she won’t talk to me, won’t even see me—Emma wouldn’t even let me help clear her name!”

Belle did touch his wrist this time, just for an instant, the slight butterfly touch calming him slightly.

“I just…” He shook his head. “Like you, I just wanted her to say it. Everything’s been so confusing since I woke up, not fitting into my life, tearing apart the life I did have in order to make a life with her only to lose her, thinking that I might have killed a woman who’s been nothing but kind to me, and then…that memory. And I know…I know love is trust, but…”

“But sometimes a little reassurance goes a long way,” Belle finished for him, and quiet as her voice was, he thought for an instant it was only the completion of his own thought, a thought he hadn’t dared finish on his own.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I mean, I did believe her, so why couldn’t she just tell me? Isn’t love as much about proving it as it is about trusting it?”

“It should be.” Belle smiled sadly, her hand in her pocket as it often was. David suspected Mr. Gold had given her something she liked to keep with her, a tangible reminder of whatever she and the reclusive pawnbroker had shared.

The silence stretched for a moment, but it was a comfortable, healing moment. For the first time in a very long time, David didn’t feel as if he had a thousand volatile thoughts and words and fears stored up inside him about to erupt; he felt calm and safe, as if a storm had passed him by. He still didn’t know what he was going to do about making his mistake up to Mary Margaret, didn’t know what he was going to do about the apartment in Boston Kathryn was thinking about giving up, but at least he felt more at peace with himself. He hoped Belle felt the same way.

“Belle,” he said gently, reminded of why he had brought up this subject in the first place. He turned to face her, sliding off the counter and onto his feet, piercing her with the intensity of his gaze, wanting her to really listen to him. “You should go to him. I don’t know Mr. Gold all that well, but…well, we were talking once—it was Valentine’s Day—and the way he talked about love, about how once gone it could never be replaced, about how important and beautiful it was…he’ll take you back, Belle. He won’t want to be without you again.”

“I don’t know.” She looked hopeful and unsure and scared and brave all at once, and it was such a heartbreaking combination on her lovely face that David felt his throat tighten.

“Belle,” he said earnestly, “do you know what I would give for Mary Margaret to forgive me, what I’d give to have her look at me the way she used to just one more time? If you have a chance to get that back, you have to go to him. You have to try.”

Her smile, slow in coming, was instantaneous once it arrived, illuminating the room around them like a flash of lightning. For a moment, David even fancied that all the dogs fell silent in awe of the luminescent hope she displayed. He was surprised when she slid off the counter and threw her arms around him, embracing him tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Despite his own situation, he couldn’t help but smile back at her when she pulled away, her face beaming and so tragically hopeful. “Now, go, before the poor man starves to death. I’ll finish up here tonight—you’ve certainly covered enough for me before.”

“Thank you,” she said again, as if her heart and mind were too full to think of anything else to say, and then she whirled away in a flurry of yellow skirts and blue coat.

David, smiling faintly, had just reached for the containers to clean them up when he felt Belle’s hand on his arm. Startled, he looked down at her.

“David,” she said softly, her eagerness dampened just a bit, though that hope in her eyes still sparkled strongly. “You should go to her, too. I know you’ve tried before, but you have to try again. Apologize once more; tell her you made a mistake. If she truly loves you, if she feels for you half of what you feel for her, she’ll take you back. She’ll forgive you.”

“You think?” David couldn’t help but shake his head, hurt stirring like acidic bile within him. “I don’t know. She won’t even listen to me anymore.”

“You have to try,” she said, parroting his words back to him with a kind smile. “If she feels for you like I do for Gold, she’ll just be waiting for any excuse to take you back. Because that’s what true love is—it takes the flaws and mistakes and weaknesses just like it takes the strengths and rights and miracles. You have to love someone on their bad days just as much as you love them on the good.” Her grin was almost mischievous, and David couldn’t see in this beautiful, strong woman the frightened, unsure girl who had come in looking for a job. “So go. Try. She’ll take you back, I know it.”

It was his turn to hug her and tell her “Thank you,” his turn to smile and hope, his turn to clean and close the shelter while his mind spun with hopeful plans.

He didn’t think it’d be quite as easy as Belle painted it, but then again, maybe it would be. Maybe all he had to do was try once more, talk to Emma yet again, do _anything_ , just keep trying. Because that apartment in Boston seemed about as desirable as Mr. Gold’s pawnshop had probably seemed to him without Belle there, and Mary Margaret was everything to David just like he suspected Belle was everything to the pawnbroker.

He did have to try. He just hoped he got it right this time.

\---


	12. Out Of Mind

\---

For the first time since Gold had given it to her, Belle hardly noticed the warmth and softness of the blue coat as she swung it over her shoulders, and when she realized that, pushing through the doors of the pet shelter and out into the rainy night air, she felt a tiny thrill wing itself through her, like effervescent bubbles in her bloodstream. Because no longer did she have to be satisfied with only the coat he had gifted her enveloping her; no longer did she have to imagine that the textured weave was his shirt as he embraced her. Now she could have the real thing.

Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully.

The little bubbles popped quite suddenly, leaving Belle suddenly very afraid. _What if he won’t take me back? What if he’s angry with me? What if…what if he doesn’t love me at all?_

At that thought, she stumbled to a halt beneath the tiny overhang above the shelter doors. She was protected from the rain here, locked in place, but she could still feel the raindrops, just a step away, and the minute she took that step, she’d be drenched and cold and shivering all alone.

Belle knew she loved Mr. Gold. She couldn’t quite say when she’d first realized it—didn’t think there had been just one specific moment or event that had unveiled the revelation to her. Rather, it had been a gradual realization that had snuck up on her so slowly and quietly that one day she had woken and wondered what it had been like to _not_ love him. These weeks apart were only making it more apparent to her because even the sound of his name or the sight of his shop or the thought of him—evoked by anything and everything—had become painful and edged with both exquisite hope and awful trepidation. She had longed for glimpses of him and then, on the rare occasions she did see him in the distance, she’d find herself hiding. Not because she believed the signatures on Emma’s papers, but because she was so afraid of what he’d do or say if _he_ saw her. So afraid he would revile her or shut her out or turn away from her. Or worse, that he would treat her just as politely and distantly as he did everyone else in town. If he ever did that, she thought she might find herself sliced to shreds on the serrated edge of her hopeful pain. No, far better to hide and avoid than to face him and lose him.

Because as protective as he was of her, as much as she knew he had never offered anyone else a job, as certain as she was that he had almost kissed her in those moments before the papers and his signature…how could she be sure that _he_ loved _her_? He had never said anything to that effect, and she was a nobody, the insane daughter of one of the countless people who owed him money—not exactly conducive to attracting someone like Mr. Gold.

And yet…and yet…and yet she knew, somehow, someway, she _was_ special to him. He had never treated her like he did everyone else—which just made the possibility that he might now all the more terrifying.

But it had been so long since she had seen him last, even longer since she had heard his wonderful, nuanced voice, and she thought she was going mad. And when she’d already been on the fringes of insanity to begin with, she couldn’t afford to take even one more step in that direction.

_He’ll take you back_ , David had said. _He won’t want to be without you again_.

So few words, such dubious truth, to base her hopes and plans on, but she was so tired of being afraid, so tired of missing him, so tired of seeing his lonely, _resigned_ eyes every time she tried to sleep. She loved him. She missed him. She needed to see him.

Resolutely, determined to leave her fear behind in the dry spot underneath the overhang, Belle darted forward into the downpour, keeping her head down. She knew the way to Gold’s pawnshop even blindfolded, which was a good thing since the heavy rain obscured all but the glowing miasma of lights emanating from the direction of lit shops or passing cars. The rain was sharply cold, heavy as it fell, soft as it caressed her face and tickled her scalp. She remembered days sitting in her cell, listening to the rain outside, trying to watch the storm through the high, grated windows, wishing she could be out in it. Now she _was_ out in it and all she could think of was ducking into the familiar, welcoming sanctuary of Gold’s shop—the only confines she felt completely comfortable spending time within.

Belle picked up her pace, almost sprinting now, trembling inside, teetering on the edge of a precipice, her breaths shallow and quick because she couldn’t stop now, couldn’t turn aside, couldn’t bear to go another day without feeling Gold’s attention fixed wholly on her. But she was going too fast for the wet streets, and she let out a cry when she collided with someone going the opposite direction.

Stumbling, trying to keep her balance on rain-slicked sidewalk—blinking, trying to see who she’d so unceremoniously run into—she instinctively reached out to grab hold of the passerby to steady him. One hand latched onto sodden sleeve, the other encountered the hard, narrow feel of a cane, and through the rain and the sound of water splashing against every available surface, she heard that wonderful, nuanced voice mutter a curse under his breath.

Her own breath got trapped somewhere under her ribcage, and Belle found herself staring, wide-eyed, up into Mr. Gold’s face.

Her recognized her at the same instant and whatever he’d been about to say, probably something equally polite and cutting, died on his tongue. In the space of an instant, he went completely expressionless, his eyes locked on her, his hand gripping his cane, his body language giving nothing away. Belatedly, Belle realized that she was still holding onto his sleeve, but she couldn’t make herself move, wouldn’t have let go even if she could have.

“Belle,” he whispered, the single name—not polite, not emotionless, not distant at all—echoing in each falling raindrop so that it seemed a musical chorus all about her, sung in a strained, hurting voice more beautiful than any choir. Relief, overpowering and cloying and dizzying, shook through her, threatening to shatter her, and she found herself clutching at him, her hands holding onto his suit coat, keeping him locked there next to her, while her breath shuddered free of her chest to tear its way into the open.

“Gold, I-I’m so—so sorry. I didn’t—” she stammered, but Gold didn’t seem to hear her, and his mask was disintegrating, sliding away with the raindrops slicking his hair to his face, making him look thinner and more fragile than ever before. He looked almost desperate, afraid, strained, and so terribly, awfully _guilty_ , his voice ragged and uneven.

“Belle, please…don’t—don’t go. Come back. Come back to me.” And he was holding onto her, reaching out and clasping hold of her arms before his eyes widened and he dropped them immediately as if he’d been burned only to reach out and touch tentative fingers to her forearms, circling her wrists and holding her hands still against his chest, as if she would try to pull back, though that was the furthest thing from her mind. “I tried to stay away, tried to let you go free, but…but I’ve watched you walk away too many times—and I can’t do it again. This time…this time, I can’t. I—I need you, Belle.” There was a catch to his voice, the tiniest fracture building inside him until she almost thought he was weeping, could feel the intensity of his grip, loose though it was, could _taste_ the immense _longing_ radiating out from him. “I didn’t sign those papers,” he added softly, but Belle didn’t care about that, scarcely registered the words at all.

She fell into him, teardrops mixing with rain on her face, her hands pulling free of his grip to circle about his neck and hug him tightly. He froze for the merest instant, and then he slid his arms around her waist and clung to her as fervently as if she were the only point of sanity in an insane world. At least, that was how desperately she was holding onto him, and he was meeting the strength of her grip with abundant zeal of his own.

Only when she was secure in his hold, when she felt his breaths, harsh and hot against her neck, did she register his admission, and a pang of guilt sliced through her. “I know,” she whispered into his shoulder, then raised her head, pulled back enough to look at him and repeat herself more loudly. “I know. I didn’t really believe that you did, not really, but I was so afraid, afraid that I’d lose you, that you didn’t want me around, and I…I couldn’t stand that if it were true.”

His hand, an anchor of heat in the cold, rose to cradle the side of her face, his eyes large and dark and swallowing up the entire night, obliterating everything else in the world until there was only him and her and nothing else at all mattered. “I do want you—forever. I love you, Belle. Belle French.” He spoke slowly, distinctly, something meaningful in his peculiar emphasis, so fraught with hidden undertones, something hungry and so very, very human lurking in the depths of his eyes, the corners of his mouth, the tension in his body.

Belle wasn’t afraid anymore. All her terror had vanished away, and she melted closer to him, smiled up at him—indeed, it would have been impossible for her _not_ to be smiling in that moment—and matched him, meaning for meaning, undertone for undertone, “I love you, Gold. Mr. Gold.” And for all that her voice was so much lighter than his, her declaration was as much an earnest promise as his was.

Before, in the backroom of his shop, she had known he'd been about to kiss her, and her heart had beat fast with nervousness, with elation, with fledgling hope. Now he was leaning down again, but this time there was no nervousness, and her hope was full-grown and wild and aflame. She raised up on her tiptoes, tilting her head back, tightening her grip on him, and his mouth—the mouth that could spin dull truths into glittering, gleaming hopes, that could grimace tightly enough to make people cower or quirk into the most endearing grin for her and her alone—his mouth met hers and Belle felt as if she would melt and wash away into the rain, swirl down streets and past people oblivious to who Mr. Gold really was, disappear into secret places that only he could spy out.

He held her as if he were two different men, one instant crushing her tightly to himself, the next instant holding her as delicately as if she might vanish should he hold too fiercely, and the dichotomy of the touch, the inconsistency of his behavior, was so much _him_ , so much of what she loved about him, that she pressed herself tighter to him and kissed him as well as she knew how. She thought that forever afterward, she would always associate the sight and sound and _taste_ of rain with him.

He kissed her, or she kissed him, and emotions strong and overpowering raced through her so devastatingly that she knew she’d never be the same again, but it was more than just the kiss, for when it transitioned smoothly into an encompassing hug, she still felt the same, felt simultaneously protected and freed by his touch, his embrace, felt inimitably touched and awed by the trembling of his hands and the slight shudders running through his slender frame, and she trembled, too, inwardly, at the knowledge that Mr. Gold _needed_ her, needed her just as much as she needed him.

If anything should have scared her, she thought it should have been that. And yet, strangely, it did nothing but make her feel stronger, braver, more capable than she’d ever been before. It made her feel real and alive and important. It made her feel loved.

When his minute shudders turned into trembling, Belle pulled back enough and was finally able to really look at him, at more than just his face. “You’re not even wearing a real coat!” she exclaimed, her hands running down over his shoulders and arms and back up his chest as if to warm him through touch alone.

Gold’s lips twitched. “I had more important things to consider.”

She blushed, and hoped the cool raindrops on her heated cheeks wouldn’t make steam rise to give her away. “You should get inside,” she said.

“Yes.” He watched her, making no move, and then his eyes fell away as he licked his lips nervously. “Come with me? To my shop?”

“Yes,” she said instantly, and was rewarded with the swift, dark gleam in his eyes, the smile he couldn’t seem to quite contain as he bent to retrieve the cane he had dropped at some point.

She kept herself tucked close to him as they walked the few blocks down to his pawnshop. She thought they were the only two people out in the stormy night, but then, nothing but Gold seemed to exist for her, so perhaps there was an entire parade of people passing them by. She couldn’t bring herself to care either way.

Gold unlocked his shop, and they tumbled inside, the cessation of rain against her skin and the heat of the shop’s interior a stark contrast to the storm outside. She looked around avidly, devouring the sight of this place she had missed so much. The animals at the shelter, her job taking care of them, David’s kindness—it all seemed to be fading, as if those memories were consigned far to the past, and this, the shop and Gold and her place with him, grew to swallow up everything else, present and immediate and meaningful.

In short order, Gold had found them quilts from a chest buried beneath rolled up maps and charts and a helmet that looked like it came from a Chinese warrior with, curiously enough, a small rag doll cuddled inside. Belle hung up the blue coat with a fond smile, then turned to retake her place at Gold’s side. He slipped his arm around her waist with that dichotomy she was growing used to, a possessiveness tempered by a tentativeness.

They sat together on a couch in the backroom she hadn’t even realized was there—she wondered how many nights he had slept here instead of returning home—hidden behind shelves full of things only Gold knew the real value of and bundles of belongings wrapped in cloth either to protect them from breaking or from being looked upon by greedy eyes. Gold kept her close, even while sitting and putting aside his cane, always with a hand on hers or an arm around her, and Belle didn’t mind in the least, returning the favor. She didn’t want to be apart from him, not after so long a time separated, didn’t want to turn away from him and look back only to find that she had imagined all of this. So she leaned back into him and twined her fingers through his and basked in his presence.

Words flowed between them, sometimes rushing quickly with a joke or a chuckle, other times ebbing, leaving companionable silence that only served to strengthen the bond between them. She wasn’t quite sure what they talked about, the specifics slipping away from her; she thought he asked about her work at the shelter and told her about the things he had sold in her absence, and she told him about Bruno and about her father finding her crying in her room that first night after leaving Gold and telling her to do whatever she thought was right, and Gold admitted that he had walked past the shelter two or three times a day, that he had visited David to ask if she was all right, that he had seen her walking through town that morning and keeping busy hadn’t worked to make him stop thinking about her and finally he had found himself leaving his shop and walking toward the shelter to find her.

“I’m glad,” she whispered, and then words ceased, and they simply _were_ , sitting next to each other, holding hands, memorizing the feel and sound and sight of each other.

She stayed until almost midnight, until Gold joked that her carriage would turn into a pumpkin soon, and she realized her father was probably worried about her. It was hard, though, even with that thought, to make herself stand, to keep herself from hugging Gold again as he helped her put her coat on, to take that step toward the door she had never been afraid would lock on her, not when she didn’t think she’d mind at all if it locked her _in_ , so long as it didn’t lock her _out_.

“Good night, dearest,” Gold finally murmured, and with a last sweet kiss on her lips, he opened the door for her.

She felt his eyes on her all the way down the street, watching until she passed from view.

For the first time in weeks, she slept well, but strangely, even wrapped in her blankets, she felt colder than she had when standing in Mr. Gold’s arms in the middle of a rainstorm.

\---

Mr. Fagin didn’t seem to mind when she asked him if she could quit without leaving two week’s notice, and David only smiled and told her he was happy for her, that sadness in his eyes momentarily displaced. Belle thanked Mr. Fagin and hugged David and gave an extra pat to Bruno, and then she left without a backward glance, eager to return to Mr. Gold. Her father had shaken his head when she told him she was working at the pawnshop again, and she knew he was worried for her, but as she got happier with every passing day, his concern faded a little bit, and he never failed to smile when he saw her smiling. The sheriff had shaken her head and muttered under her breath, then given Gold a flat look when he’d provided certified proof that he hadn’t signed her incarceration papers, that they’d been faked by the nurse in order to justify Belle’s presence to anyone who stumbled upon it. The townspeople came up with their own scandalous or outrageous reasons to explain why she went back to the pawnbroker.

It was, ironically, Mr. Gold who seemed most surprised by her return. She wondered if he had thought he would never see her again, or that she might see him and hug him but not come back to work for him. She wondered what he would do if she told him she didn’t care about the paycheck or people’s scandalized, confused whispers; she was more interested in the fact that when she worked for him, she got to spend all day with him, and even that didn’t seem like enough time.

Every morning, she got up and made breakfast for them both, sometimes with ingredients Gold gave her the day before with a shrug and a quip that he didn’t want to go hungry just because she’d run out of flour. Every morning, she kissed her father’s cheek in farewell, took up the basket of food and whatever book Gold had loaned her, and skipped down the streets to the pawnshop. Every morning, he was already there, standing in the doorway, watching for her, staring at her as she walked toward him.

She always smiled at him, even when she’d stayed up too late reading and was tired, even when she didn’t feel happy and sunny and cheerful. She smiled because he looked so awed watching her come back to him, and because seeing him so obviously waiting for her, feeling the whole of his attention absorbed in _her_ , she couldn’t help but smile. It was as natural a reaction as flinching from fire or admiring a rainbow, automatic and instinctive and easy.

As soon as she drew close to him, he said, “Good morning, Miss French,” everyday without fail. She knew he was afraid that the townspeople would revile her for being with him, knew he was afraid that one day her father would find out about them and convince her to leave him, knew he feared losing his pretenses and facades and masks and being exposed before everyone.

She wasn’t afraid of those things, so she always replied, “Good morning, Mr. Gold,” and gave him a smile filled with all their secrets and wishes.

Their routine never varied in those first few minutes, no matter what had occurred the day before. He opened the door for her, she preceded him into their shop—she knew it was his, but nowadays, she couldn’t help but think of it as _theirs_ —and he took the basket from her to set on the counter next to the cash register.

He turned back to her, helped her off with her coat, stepped into the backroom to hang it up, and she followed on his heels. Then, the instant the coat was out of his hands, she stepped into his arms and hugged him, feeling all the winding cords that threatened to unravel when she left his shop solidify and conform once more to him, to the shape she took while being held by him. He always returned the hug immediately, always held her so tightly and reverently, and always a single tremor shuddered through him, as if he were terrified from the moment she left until the moment she returned that he would never see her again. But after a moment, his grip eased, and they both drew back just far enough to look at each other. Usually, his hand rose to caress her cheekbone, his thumb brushing against her lips, and then either he bent to kiss her or she leaned upward to kiss him.

It was always a short kiss, delicate and cautious and contented. It had been exactly what she needed in those first few days after returning to him, but lately she had begun to wonder what it would be like to kiss him as she had in the rain. Wondered what it would feel like to walk through town with him, unashamed, proud to let everyone know that she loved this man they all feared, that she knew something they didn’t. Wondered what it would be like to tell him again, as she hadn’t since that rainstorm—neither of them had uttered those heady, exhilarating words since then—that she loved him.

But brave as he made her, she wasn’t quite that bold, so she accepted the small, lovely kiss and was happy.

_I’m happy._

The thought turned over and over in her head, a different emotion coloring it with every revolution. Because just weeks ago she had been locked up, forgotten, neglected, lost inside her own convoluted mind, and now…now she was free and living and smiling and _happy_. She could barely connect who she was now to the terrified patient wasting away in a tiny cell, almost could not contain both memories inside the same mind. It was as if she had lived two separate lives, in two different worlds; in one, there was only concrete and metal and thick doors and unmoving locks and hazy thoughts and terrifying blackouts. In the other, there was sky and rain and her father and tea and worn handkerchiefs and blue coats—and Gold.

She would have been happy just being free, getting to talk to her father and feel his affection, able to walk down open streets and breathe in the scent of roses. But with Gold in her life, with his dark humor and sharp asides and startling warmth and encompassing love, she was more than happy. She was…jubilant, incandescent with light and joy and elation, made even more so because Gold looked at her in the same way, as if his life had been dark and shrunken and confining and she had brought him the same measure of delight and happiness and quiet, abiding contentment.

Aside from knowing that she needed to tell her father about her and Mr. Gold, there was only one worry that intermittently nagged at her during these happy, dreamy days, one potential problem she couldn’t help but ponder in dark moments.

Sometimes, not often but enough so that she noticed, Gold would say something and look at her, as if waiting, and then a flicker, sad and disappointed, would pass through his oblique eyes; other times he’d look at her and some strange, almost wistful look would ghost across his features before he could wipe it away. Occasionally, he would call her Belle, and then he’d pause and give a minute shake of his head before continuing with whatever he was going to say. And every time she served him tea, every time he held a teacup, he’d smile a brittle smile to himself and his eyes would flutter closed ever so briefly, as if to shut her out of whatever private grief the tea evoked.

They were small occurrences, tiny moments that, added up together, equaled a mystery Belle couldn’t quite figure out. But it was a small worry, and she learned something new about Gold every day, so she was confident that one day she would understand him, would understand why he could look so sad and so happy all at once. One day his complexities and layers would be familiar to her, his mysteries well visited and catalogued. For now, it was enough that she was able to recognize truths behind his facades and that he invited her into the secret places he kept hidden from everyone else.

He was complicated, but she wouldn’t change a thing about him, wouldn’t change what her life had become, wouldn’t change who _she_ was because she was whole and in love and happy.

And then it all fell apart.

“Belle,” he called one day, walking toward her where she knelt to dust the lowest shelves. She’d been busy since he’d asked her to clean everything and try to find room to display every object prominently; something very like impatience had been flaring up inside him recently, and he seemed convinced that one day very soon the townspeople would come to his shop by the droves to clean him out.

With a smile, Belle turned from her work— _perhaps more daydreaming than work_ , she admitted to herself—to look at him, something she never failed to find fascinating.

Gold stepped toward her, stood there looking down at her with a fond smile softening his harsh features, and Belle felt her heart seize up within her, felt something warm and overwhelming and amazing swell and expand until she thought that surely there was no more room in her body for everything she was feeling at that moment. She’d known she loved him, but everyday it seemed she loved him _more_.

Whatever her face showed, his own softened, angles and lines becoming curves and shadows as he opened his mouth—

Behind him, something flickered, moved, gleamed. Belle blanched when she saw the large candelabrum behind Gold suddenly straighten and move, eyes opening in its center wick, its arms swinging outward as if to stretch. The apparition, limned in silver and white, looked over Gold’s shoulder with flaming eyes and smiled at her, a cheerful, seductive smile that left icicles trickling down her spine.

“Belle?”

A strangled sound emerged from somewhere back in her throat, and Belle darted a glance at Gold before looking back to the apparition.

The eyes were extinguished, the smile melted, the arms back in their normal places. The candelabrum was nothing more than a candelabrum, an inanimate object looming behind Gold.

_A trick of the light_ , Belle tried to tell herself, but she had never been a good liar, not even when attempting to lie to herself, and she knew it had been more than that.

“Belle?” Only gradually did Belle realize that Gold was bending over her, his eyes worried and piercing, studying her, sifting through her layers, trying to figure out why she was so silent and white and still. “What’s wrong, dearest? What is it?”

“Nothing,” she whispered through dry, stiff lips. “It’s nothing.”

He didn’t believe her, but then, she didn’t believe herself either. But she took his hand, and she rose to her feet, and she asked what he had wanted her for, and when they drank tea that afternoon, she felt herself relax just the slightest bit to see that he was too focused on her to make that fragile, breakable smile.

She spent the rest of the day convincing herself that it had been nothing, convincing herself to ignore the forgotten memories of the apparitions she had seen appear intermittently in the months just before she’d been taken away and locked up in a mental asylum, convincing herself that there was no reason to panic. Mainly by sheer force of will, she managed to push the incident to the back of her mind. Gold was so much more important, and his presence was always so powerful, so intriguing, so enticing, that it was hard for her to think of much besides him when he was with her, especially when he would reach out so often to brush small, light, barely there touches over her, as if to remind himself that she was there, that she was real, that she was alive.

By the time she had to leave to make her appointment with Dr. Hopper, Belle had almost forgotten the incident. It was worrying, of course it was, but she was better now, and Dr. Hopper was helping her, and Gold had promised to protect her, so there was no reason for her heart to beat a rapid, terrified tempo as she walked into the psychiatrist’s office, no reason for her breath to turn ragged and uneven, no reason for her to have to stand outside the door for five minutes before she could make herself reach out and grasp hold of the doorknob.

Dr. Hopper seemed to write more in his tiny notebook during the session than he usually did, but perhaps she was just being hyper-sensitive—she dared not use the word _paranoid_ , not added to everything else. She tried to keep her responses as normal as possible, but how was she to know what _normal_ was? In her euphoria that she’d been released from her cell, she’d almost forgotten that there was a very specific type of people who were locked up in asylums.

A type of people that saw things that couldn’t exist, heard things that weren’t really there, were afraid of things that weren’t scary.

A type of people like her.

“Are…are you sure you’re all right?” Dr. Hopper asked her when she was collecting her coat and trying to prepare herself to open the doors leading outside. “You seem a little on edge today.”

“I…” Belle hesitated. Dr. Hopper always seemed so harmless, so friendly, so concerned for her, and Gold seemed to trust him as far as he trusted anyone, but…but he was the psychiatrist tasked with making certain she was sane. And after that strange hallucination in the pawnshop, she didn’t exactly feel very sane. Would he send her back to her prison if she answered wrong? “I was doing much better,” she said, “but the doors…sometimes I’m still afraid they won’t open.”

And that was the truth. It just wasn’t the truth he had asked for. Wryly, she thought that she had been spending too much time with Mr. Gold lately, and with that burst of humor, she was able to smile at the doctor and place her hand on the doorknob without flinching.

“But I’m getting over that,” she said cheerfully, absently nodded at Dr. Hopper’s pleased farewell, and fled from his office.

She still had to negotiate the outer door as well, but knowing that Dr. Hopper could be watching her, knowing that the apparition had most likely been nothing more than a trick of the light, she reached out to push open the door with nothing more than the slightest check to her movement.

Breathing out a quiet sigh of relief when the door opened easily, she stepped outside—

Blinked.

Breathed.

“—Belle? Belle, what are you doing?”

She was inside. Standing in the kitchen. At home. Her father was standing in the doorway, calling her name, his brow furrowed with worry he wasn’t even trying to conceal.

There was something in her hand. Slowly, jerkily, she looked down, past the window dark with night, past the sink running hot water just in front of her, past it all to look at her hand.

A knife. She was holding a long, gleaming carving knife.

Bile flooded the back of her throat, and she dropped the knife into the sink with a clatter, shut off the water with a hand that shook so much it took her two tries to turn the lever.

It was happening again, just like last time, before she’d been taken and locked up and hidden away and forgotten. Things that weren’t real showing up unexpectedly. Blackouts. Lost time. Strange actions she could never explain afterward. And how could she have forgotten all of this?

_I’m going crazy_.

A tiny whimper vibrated through her, and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself.

“Belle?” her father asked, stepping slowly forward, his hands loose at his sides, his voice calm and steady. _As if he’s trying to calm a wild animal_ , she couldn’t help but think. “Are you all right?”

Blindly, dazedly, she stared up at him, felt the mist of hot steam on her brow, felt her hands ball up into hard fists against her ribs, and she saw worry, fear, denial on her father’s face, as plain to read as if he had a cover she’d opened to scan the text inside.

She loved her father. She trusted him. But he’d already been through enough. He’d gotten her back, and she couldn’t take that away from him, not so soon. She couldn’t erase the smiles and happiness and joy he so obviously felt every time he saw her, couldn’t paint over those things with loss and grief and sorrow.

She couldn’t go back to her cell.

So she gave him a wan smile, dropped her hands, and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Pa—Dad. I just…I was going to cut up some apples, but…but we don’t have any apples.”

He watched her for a long moment, during which Belle trembled inside herself in terror, but he finally matched her drawn smile. “No apples. But I did buy some strawberries for you earlier.”

Tears threatened, trembled on the brink of falling, yet she found herself smiling anyway, once more astounded by the depths of her emotions. She had felt nothing in the cell, no extremes, no vividness, only dull, gray _existence_ , so much so that she had forgotten what it was like to feel so strongly, to _want_ so desperately…to hurt so badly.

“I like strawberries,” she said in a voice that shook.

“Yeah,” her father whispered, and there was a terrible sort of _knowing_ in his eyes. _I didn’t fool him_ , she thought, but she said nothing, only got out some bowls while her father pulled out strawberries and whipped cream.

Neither one of them said anymore about the knife or the hot water or the terror they were both feeling. Instead, they sat at the table and ate strawberries dipped in cream, and they shared memories and spoke of things that were important only to them.

When the strawberries were gone, when their words had faded away, when Belle reluctantly stood to place their bowls in the sink, her father spoke, suddenly, quickly, as if afraid he would never speak the words should he not seize this moment. “Belle…you know you can tell me anything, right? You don’t…don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she told him gently, looking down at her papa, sitting there, and even with her fears, she was able to smile at him.

“Okay,” he said. He met her eyes, made as if to stand, then stayed where he was, kept his hands on the table. “But please, Belle…don’t shut me out. I want…I want to be there for you. No matter what.”

She studied him a long moment, watched him, and she knew Gold thought her father would find ways to keep them apart, knew he was afraid of what would happen should she be forced to choose between her father and him, but Belle wasn’t afraid. Not of this, anyway.

“I love Mr. Gold,” she said, surprised at the steadiness of her own voice. “I…I’ve been seeing him.”

Her father winced, tried to conceal it, kept his eyes fixed on his hands for a moment before looking back up at her. “Ah. That…wasn’t the confession I was expecting.”

Belle felt her breath cut sharp into her lungs, wanted to run, dared not look down into the sink where the bowls lay stacked beside the sharp knife she hadn’t dared touch again.

“It’s all right,” her father said hastily, perhaps misinterpreting her reaction. “I…I already knew you loved him. I was just hoping that…well, you’re different now, and…anyway, I…” Her father stopped and took a deep breath, then let out a light chuckle. “Anyway. Belle,” and now he stood, moved closer to her, reached out to put his hands on her shoulders, “I love you. Mr. Gold might not be the man I’d have chosen for you, but if _you_ chose him…well, no one decides your life but you. So…I just want you to be happy.”

“I am,” she whispered. She stepped forward and hugged him, let his weighty presence envelop her. For that moment, her cheek against his familiar chest, his scent all around her, she wished she were a child again, his small daughter that he could protect from night terrors, could keep safe and content. But she wasn’t a child anymore, and her night terrors couldn’t be chased away through a mere nightlight and some comforting bedtime stories, and much as she loved her father, he was no longer enough to keep her fully happy. “I love you, Papa,” she murmured into his shirt, and then she smiled up at him, kissed him on the cheek, and slipped away.

Only when the door of her bedroom closed behind her—and he would know something was wrong because she never closed it all the way—did she let her inward shaking transmute into outward shudders. She slid back against the door to the floor, brought up her knees into her chest, covered her mouth with a hand, and felt salty tears stain her fingertips, because much as Belle wanted to be brave, she was _terrified_.

 ---

She barely slept at all, afraid of dreams, afraid dreams would become reality to her, afraid she wouldn’t wake up until she found herself somewhere else, maybe holding a knife again, maybe bleeding, maybe locked up in the cell she’d been out of for so short a time. As soon as she could make excuses for being up—as soon as she thought Gold would be at the shop—she grabbed up the basket of food she’d already prepared and hurried to his shop.

Even though she was early, he was already standing at the door, already waiting for her, and though his brows twitched a bit in surprise to see her an hour before she normally came, he nonetheless said, “Good morning, Miss French.”

“Good morning, Gold,” she said, aware that she had forgotten to add _Mr._ only when his brow quirked again. She smiled at the expression, and was surprised that she could. But then, already her tension was melting away, her worries becoming nothing more than childish fears, her suspicion that she was going insane again shattered into ephemeral pieces that spiraled away from her. And all with no more than the sight of Gold waiting for her, than one phrase spoken in his beloved voice. How many more fears would be banished by his touch? By his embrace? By his kiss?

Happy and relieved, Belle followed him into the backroom, but when he turned to take her coat, she simply stepped into his arms. He was surprised, she knew, but he didn’t hesitate before returning the embrace—only this time, it was she who trembled, she who shuddered as stress and fear and tension melted away. She relaxed in his arms, breathed him in, felt her mind heal and reform and strengthen, all its cracks covered up.

“Belle,” he murmured, his breath stirring her hair, and she turned her head up and kissed him. It was more than the small, sweet kiss they’d been exchanging, bolder and with just a hint of desperation that was, strangely enough, matched by Gold. He held her tightly, kissed her as if he, too, had been wanting more than the small kiss they’d grown comfortable with, and when they pulled back, his breath was shaky.

“I missed you,” she breathed, and he smiled immediately, only belatedly turning it into a smirk.

“Well, after that, I’d say you should miss me more often.”

“No,” she said, trying to conceal her panic at that thought. “I’d really rather not.”

His next quip faded away without being uttered, and he traced a thumb down the curve of her cheek. He said nothing, but he didn’t have to, not when his touch said so much.

“I brought breakfast,” she said, with cheer that was only partially forced.

He rolled his eyes and reluctantly dropped his arms from her waist. “Still trying to fatten me up, I see,” he said, and everything went back to normal.

The morning passed quickly. Belle made certain she was always near Gold. If he moved to work in the backroom, she did, too; if he went to the front to do paperwork, she busied herself dusting and rearranging the front wares. She didn’t say anything about it, though she didn’t fool herself that he didn’t notice. She knew he was aware that something wasn’t right, but he chose not to address it, and truthfully, she was glad.

Already, the events of the day before were fading, made less real and stark by Gold’s reassuring presence. For a little while, Belle allowed herself to believe that she had imagined it all, that her fears had made what she was most terrified of into something resembling reality. But she felt better today, more cohesive and whole, and Gold was there, and he made her laugh and teased her until she swatted him with her dust-cloth and complimented her lunch and did not smile that sad smile during tea, and Belle began to relax.

In fact, by mid-afternoon, she was feeling so much better that when Gold told her he was leaving to collect some poor soul’s rent—standing there so awkward and unsure, as if giving her the chance to tell him she did not want him to leave—she was able to push away the nibbling of fear and tell him she’d be fine without him there to distract her. He hesitated a moment, but she laughed and pushed him toward the door, and finally he went.

And Belle _was_ fine. Her fears didn’t come roaring back in like a wildfire intent on consuming her. Her mind didn’t shatter and break and leave her a gibbering mess. She was safe and strong and whole, and she was determined—resolutely, completely, desperately—that nothing would happen to tear her life away from her again. That this time, she would fight to keep it all, her job and her father and her freedom. And Gold. Him above all she would fight to keep.

Smiling fondly, Belle replaced the violin she’d been polishing and turned to see what item next needed her attention—

Blinked.

Breathed.

“—Belle?” So much terror and guilt, such a thin thread of resignation running through that distinctive voice…so completely unexpected, because she’d been all alone in the shop.

Only…she wasn’t alone anymore. She wasn’t standing in front of the display of stringed instruments, wasn’t holding a dust-cloth, wasn’t surveying a shop that, though cluttered, was clean. Instead, she was crouched on the floor, surrounded by shards of glass all reflecting back the image of a confused, barefoot girl and a distraught pawnbroker kneeling with a hand outstretched toward her. Blood speckled the floor, marred her bare feet, and made swirling patterns on her fingers, stained the mirror she’d shattered. It wasn’t mid-afternoon anymore either; judging by the darker shadows cast across the floor all around her, scattered into diamonds against the glass, it was nearing evening.

A keening sound was torn from her throat. Belle brought up trembling hands and covered her face, blotting out the sight of Gold’s worry and concern, the sharp glitter of the broken mirror, the wild, unhinged look in her own eyes, staring back at her from a hundred pieces of destruction. Tears fell like miniature wishes, trickling past her fingers, erasing drops of blood.

“Belle? What’s wrong, dearest? What happened? Are you well?”

Gasping, Belle brought her hands down; without thinking, she tried to sweep the pieces of glass together, tried to get rid of this proof of her insanity. “I-I’m so sorry! I-I didn’t mean to! I’ll clean it up, oh, please, don’t send me—”

“Belle!” Gold caught her hands up in his before she could do more than feel the harsh cold of the glass shards, and then he pulled her forward, somehow impossibly lifting her at just the right angle to clear her of the glass even as he brought her close to him, tugging on her hands until she went willingly into his embrace. “Shh,” he soothed her, soft and gentle and compassionate, all of those things just for her and her alone. “Don’t worry, Belle. Forget the mirror; it doesn’t matter. It’s just a—” He cut himself off hastily, pressed her head against his chest with a tender hand, wrapping his other arm around her, reminding her that she was here, that she was real, that she had a place, all things that Belle had begun to doubt.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, but he shushed her again with a murmur and an incoherent exclamation. She knew she should tell him, should be honest with him, should open her mouth and warn him that he was employing a madwoman.

But then he would leave. Or he would send her away. Or he would look at her and that spark, that gleam, that heated glittering would fizzle away and evaporate in a fading wisp of smoke. And she’d be alone again, without him, mad and isolated and, eventually, locked up.

And right now he was holding her, and he was warm, and he was keeping her together, and later was time enough to be brave, to be strong, to be everything she wanted the heroes in her beloved stories to be. Later. Later when he was not hugging her as if she were his whole world and stroking her hair as if she were more precious than all the valuable pieces in his shop and whispering soothing sounds that might or might not have been words.

Later.

For now, she clutched at his shirt and inhaled the scent of him—wool and frost and fire and something very like lightning—and let him help her to her throbbing feet. He guided her to the counter where she hoisted herself up to sit, and without words, he retrieved washcloths and warm water and bandages he pulled from who knew where. Belle watched him as he washed the blood from her feet, his every move precise and neat and as exacting as she had come to expect from him after watching him tinker with his wares. She didn’t wince away from the pain of the water and antiseptic he applied, didn’t pull away from the dancing fingers winding bandages over the shallow cuts, didn’t wonder about the tiny sparks of energy that seemed to leap outward from his hands to coat her gashes in numbness.

When he moved to wash the blood from her fingers, she caught his hands in hers, unable to resist any longer, unable to hide the shivers that ran up and down her spine at the merest hint of his touch. He met her eyes, and the sheer breadth of his earlier emotion was hidden away, all but the residue of it gone as if it had never been. And yet there _was_ that remnant of it clinging to the corners of his eyes, the lines around his mouth, the rigid steadiness of his breath.

“Gold…” She bit her lip, closed her eyes, and could not say the words. Could not confess when it would mean losing him. _I guess I’m not like the heroes in my books after all_ , she thought sadly. “Go to dinner with me?” she asked instead.

His eyes narrowed, his hands slack in hers. “Here?”

“No, I was thinking we could go out.” She didn’t let him look away, kept his gaze fixed on hers. “I told my father about us last night—he already knew, though. He…he wants me to be happy, and he knows that _you_ make me happy.”

A miniscule wince passed across those severe, beautiful features, and he looked down at her blood-spotted hands. As if reminded of his task, he began wiping away the speckles of crimson. Belle swallowed, the wounds in her feet pulsing distantly in time with her heartbeat, cold against the glass counter.

_He doesn’t want to be seen with me_. Really, she should have known. He was so careful about always keeping up his veneer, his armor, his façade, and being publicly seen with her in a romantic setting would show everyone that he wasn’t the heartless monster they all seemed to think he was.

Or maybe he just didn’t want to be seen connected romantically to the town lunatic. One thing to employ her; another to love her.

Belle canted her chin higher, refused to give into her tears. _I can wear a mask as easily as he can_. _I can be strong even if I’m not brave._

“All right.”

His answer only slowly penetrated her paper-thin shield made more of bravado and pride than substance.

Belle blinked at him. “All right? You will? Outside? With me?”

The tiny smirk at her expense did much to right her world, familiar and comforting and jarring against the tenderness of his hands on hers. “That is what I said, of course I will, I believe that’s what ‘going out’ means, and who else would I go with?”

A laugh escaped her, alleviating her own tension and bleeding some of the worry out of Gold. Belle slipped her hands free of his hold so she could throw her arms around him.

Excitement bubbled within her as she gingerly stepped into the backroom to call her father and tell him where she was going. Finally she would be able to let everyone see just how much she cared for the dignified, ruthless pawnbroker who was so gentle and vulnerable with her. Finally she would be able to smile and laugh and talk with him in public beyond their daily, formal greetings. And if those things just so happened to also allow her to stay in Gold’s presence for several hours longer…well, she certainly wasn’t going to complain, not when he was the only thing keeping the madness away.

When she hung up the phone—swallowing and hiding a burst of renewed terror at the sight of her shoes sitting incongruously, inexplicably atop Gold’s worktable—she moved into the front. Gold had cleaned up the glass and was rearranging the paintings on the wall to hide that there had ever been a mirror hanging there. He turned quickly, purposely casual, when he heard her, and Belle allowed the misdirection, not eager to revisit the topic of her… _blackouts? Hallucinations? Mind-snaps?_ She wasn’t sure what to call them, and remembering what David had said about his own blackouts and what had resulted from them, she felt her fears threaten to resurface.

“Ready?” Gold asked her, and when she slipped her arm into the crook of his elbow, she let herself forget all the bad things that _had_ happened and _could_ happen, and simply focused on this night.

And it was everything she had dreamed it would be. People stared and whispered and pointed, and Belle didn’t care at all. In fact, some small, eccentric part of her actually enjoyed the surprise of the provincial townspeople, and when she did not draw away from him at the thinly veiled shock and disapproval of everyone they passed, Gold relaxed, tension she hadn’t even realized he felt leeched out of him.

He was attentive and solicitous, tender and amusing, and she laughed at his sarcastic asides about the people they saw at the restaurant, teased him about the dreadful amount of sugar he put in his coffee, and luxuriated in the openness with which she could reach out and touch him.

She would have called it a perfect night save for the moment when Gold left to settle the bill, the moment when the salt and pepper shakers on the table in front of her swiveled in place to look up at her. The speckled openings on the caps were rearranged into the semblance of faces and they rocked back and forth on their corners.

“You know he’s just using you, right?” the salt asked her, so sympathetic and worried for her.

“Any man would be lonely in his position,” the pepper added caustically, silver cap glinting, “and who better to use as a companion than the girl just released from the asylum? Who else would have him?”

Belle frowned at the shakers, but before she could reply, Gold was there, offering her a hand to help her rise from the booth, and the salt and pepper shakers were simply objects placed on the table, identical to every other set on every other table in the restaurant.

She tried not to think too hard on it. Tried to dismiss it. Tried not to let it ruin her night.

And really, even with that small aberration, it was one of the best nights she could ever remember having. Gold stayed at her side the rest of the evening, and nothing real or imagined dared bother her in his presence. He walked her home, and caught his breath when the moon passed from behind a cloud to shine a spotlight on her, and bent to press a poignant kiss to her mouth. This time, Belle was the one who stood in the doorway and watched him walk away until there was nothing left to see.

She had nightmares, but that was nothing new; and her father had to open the door for her because she was too afraid that it wouldn’t unlock for her, but that wasn’t exactly uncommon—and when she met Gold at the pawnshop in the morning, everything was once more made right.

He took her to dinner that evening too, and there were only the hours during the night when she was separated from him, only those hours for her insanity to lash out at her. She went to sleep in her bed and woke curled up in the closet, all of her clothes pulled from the hangers to lie in crumpled puddles around her, but at least that time there was no blood, no blades, no sharp edges.

She waved goodbye to her father, took breakfast to the pawnshop, and kissed Gold as if nothing at all was wrong.

Belle knew it couldn’t last. She was lying to Gold, by omission if not overtly, and she was dangerous. One day, he would no longer be enough to keep the shadows of her mind from emerging. One day, she would have a knife in her hand again. One day…one day, there would be no waking from the night terrors. One day, the blood wouldn’t be hers. She was dangerous, untrustworthy, completely insane—the more so because she could so easily shrug aside the mad occurrences when they were not happening.

She knew she needed to tell Gold. Every day, she vowed that she would, packed up her promises in the worn basket alongside the muffins and bottles of orange juice, and every day she returned home long after twilight and unpacked the empty containers and empty bottles and unfulfilled promises.

_I’m a coward_. She was, truly, but much as she exhorted herself to courage, it never seemed enough when she was with Gold. He was so…so _everything_ , and she loved him so _much_ , and she did not _want_ to go back to her lonely, isolated, awful, _gray_ cell. And so she said nothing.

But Gold was smart and perceptive and knew her very well, and every day, she thought for sure that he would look at her and say, “I know you’re hiding something from me, dearest. I know something’s gone wrong.” Her apparitions warned her that he’d say other things, more hurtful, damaging things, but Belle refused to believe them. Gold loved her, she did not doubt that, and she would not listen to their caring suspicions and blunt accusations, would not let them take root and fester inside her.

Every day, she expected to be found out, but every day, she returned home with her secret still intact. She began to wonder if Gold _did_ know and chose to protect her. Perhaps he no more wanted her to go back to that underground cell than she did. Perhaps he could not bear to lose her just as she could not bring herself to think on a future devoid of him. Perhaps he protected her in his own, furtive way.

Or perhaps it was something else.

Because even as she gravitated ever nearer and nearer to him, he began to withdraw from her. Oh, he still waited at the door for her and kissed her good morning—in the doorway now, not the backroom—and teased her and took her to dinner. But there was always a part of him that was not there with her, that was preoccupied and worrying and planning. Belle tried not to let it distress her—she had too much to worry about already, too many nightmares of blinking to find him crumpled at her feet with blood peeking out of his chest where his pocket square should have been or hurling at him words shaped by jagged shadows inside her mind and serrated fears born of hallucinations; too many nightmares of any kind to risk adding dreams where he left her or laughed at her or turned away from her.

She _tried_ not to worry, but she couldn’t help it. It had been bad enough when he had reserved for himself only those brief pauses, those brittle smiles, those tiny disappointed glances; it was worse when now there was _always_ some piece of him that was disconnected from her.

It was even harder to keep her panic at bay, to not listen to the apparitions’ suspicions, when she saw Gold leaving Dr. Hopper’s office, moving slowly and carefully, as if his joints ached, as if he could not move too quickly lest he shatter. She’d been headed to Dr. Hopper’s herself, to confess the reason she’d called with excuses their last two sessions, to ask him to help her find the courage she needed to admit to Gold what had been happening.

But it seemed Gold already knew.

The next few hours were a study in exquisite terror. Belle entered the pawnshop timidly, disturbed even more by the fact that for the first time since she’d come back, he wasn’t waiting at the door to greet her.

_He knows_.

But he came in a half hour later with apologies for being late and a hug he held for a long extra moment and a kiss more tentative even than their good morning kisses that first week after she’d left the shelter. She watched him, biting her lip so hard she drew blood, waiting for him to tell her that he knew she was crazy.

But he said nothing. He began to work just as he always did, if a bit more absentmindedly than usual, and although he didn’t avoid Belle, he certainly didn’t seek her out either. And she knew, knew with cold terror sliding down her spine, that he was waiting for her to tell him. Waiting for her to prove that she trusted him.

_Tell him_ , she told herself that afternoon for the millionth time. It felt like an eternity that she had been avoiding the truth, an eternity that she had been hiding her insanity behind the shield of normalcy. Better she tell him of her own volition, and telling him would… _would ruin everything_ , she thought, unable to lie to herself even in her own thoughts—which was terribly ironic considering just how often her mind fooled her so devastatingly.

Belle took in a shuddering breath and glanced across the counter at Gold. They were taking tea together, and as had become usual in the past five torturous days, they were mostly silent, each lost to their own thoughts. Silent, but together, and that was a luxury she wouldn’t be afforded when she was back in her cell.

Gold grimaced down at his plain teacup, and he set it down with a clatter.

It was now or never. She’d been lying for five days. Lying and hiding and deceiving and running away, and she couldn’t take it anymore. _Tell him before he tells you,_ she commanded herself. And feeling something inside of her break, Belle opened her mouth. “Gold—”

“Belle,” Gold began at the same time, turning to face her.

Too late. She’d waited too long.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, then clamped her mouth shut. She might not be as brave as she wished, but at least she could meet her fate with dignity. Her stomach contracted into a hard, tight ball that sat there, heavy and painful and bitter. Tears burned the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

“I…” Gold swallowed and looked away, his eyes roving restlessly across the shop until finally fixating on an old, worn ball placed in a prominent position. “I have a son,” he admitted.

Belle stared at him. Stared so long that he shifted uncomfortably, something like shame passing across his features, as his words—what he’d actually said, not what she’d been afraid he was going to say—sank in. “Really?” she asked, and despite her situation, a small smile curved her lips to think of a boy with Gold’s dark eyes and clever hands and soft hair, a young man with his lilting voice and sardonic smirk and cunning mind. “Where is he?”

“I lost him. A long time ago.” She had never heard his voice sound so choked before. Moved, she reached over to place her hand over his. There were no words she could say, nothing she could do to alleviate the naked pain on his face, so she simply rested her head on his shoulder, reminding him that he was not alone. He remained still for an instant, and then he let out a breath and leaned his head atop hers.

“I think I might have found him,” he breathed out, so quietly she knew he was afraid to even say it too loudly lest the volume alone make it disappear. “But I might just be seeing what I want to see. And…I let him go, before. I don’t know that he’ll even speak to me.”

“You have to try,” she said, and wanted to flinch away from the force of David’s words spoken in her own voice. Wanted to hide from their truth. “You should go to him. Talk to him.”

He stroked her hair slowly, intently, pleading wordlessly, a stark contrast to what she had thought he would be doing with her when he’d arrived so late this morning. His kindness only made her feel even guiltier for her deception.

“What if he won’t forgive me?” he murmured, and so forlorn was his voice that she knew this was his deepest fear, revealed to her, exposed to her with no thought of hiding himself away. She was awed by his trust and shamed by his example and amazed all over again by him.

“He might not,” she admitted. “But if you don’t try…you’ll have to live with that for the rest of your life.”

And now, finally, she had the courage she needed to tell him that she was crazy, that she could not stay with him, that she had to leave him again, the bravery to try and trust and hope. But ironically, it was the worst time to tell him such a thing, now when he needed her, when he was distracted and afraid and vulnerable. So in lieu of words and confessions and farewells, she twisted to face him and buried her hands in his hair and kissed him, deeply, desperately, longingly.

“I love you,” he whispered raggedly when she broke the kiss to keep her tears from falling.

“And I love you,” she returned, hoping he wouldn’t notice the catch at the back of her throat. “Now go.”

And with a last kiss, as if seeking out strength from her—though she knew she had none to give him, none at all in comparison to his own—he left, his jaw set and eyes tormented and limp more pronounced than she’d ever seen it before.

Belle watched him go, but strangely, for the first time in almost a week, she wasn’t afraid of his absence. Maybe she would see more things that weren’t really there, and maybe she would blink to find herself somewhere else, but no matter what had happened, she wasn’t afraid anymore.

She had to tell him, had to go to him, had to hope that he would understand and forgive her.

She had to…because if she didn’t, she’d have to live with that for the rest of her life.

Resolutely, Belle grabbed her coat, firmly locked the door _behind_ her—something she never failed to delight in doing—and began walking down the street, shrugging aside the feeling of being watched. Dr. Hopper would know where Gold lived, and when Gold returned from speaking to his son, she would be there, waiting for him, with her own confession to tell.

For the first time in a very long time, Belle felt brave.

\---


	13. Out Of The Past

\---

“Be honest,” the professional conscience had advised him, and he had been, but what did honesty matter when deception was his only reward?

“You have to try,” Belle had told him, and he had, but the magnitude of the gesture, the effort involved in gathering his limited courage to give the knife over had all been wasted on the wrong person.

 _Not my son_.

Not his son, just an opportunistic liar trying to make a puppet out of him.

He tried to tell himself he was shuddering because of how close he’d come to losing all control of himself to the would-be puppet-master, that his breaths came quick and clipped only at the thought of what might have happened if he hadn’t used the bit of reclaimed magic to heal Belle’s gashed feet, if he had still possessed some touch of magic when the man he’d thought—hoped—deluded himself into believing—was his son had taken hold of his cursed knife.

He tried to convince himself of those things, but he knew it to be only a defensive ploy.

The truth was that he shuddered because he had imagined this moment between himself and the son he’d lost more times than he could count, envisioning the conversation playing out between the endlessly revolving spokes of the spinning wheel. The truth was that he could not breathe properly because he’d been close— _so close_ —to receiving what he’d committed unspeakable acts to achieve and yet now he didn’t think he’d ever been so very far away from accomplishing his goal.

His fear had nothing to do with the knife; it had everything to do with his son and the man who’d pretended to be his son, still alive because even now Rumplestiltskin—Mr. Gold—couldn’t bring himself to harm the man he’d only moments earlier thought to be one of only two people he’d loved selflessly, harmfully, inevitably.

He left the imposter crumpled against a tree, drained and trembling and perhaps realizing what a monumental error it was to try to trick the Dark One, left him staring and sliding down to the ground, but in reality, Mr. Gold—Rumplestiltskin—knew that it was he who had taken the larger wound in their confrontation. He might have emerged whole and in control of his own faculties, but he could not hide the fact that August W. Booth had taken a very large, very bloody chunk out of him.

The knife wasn’t safe anymore, not where it had been, not in any buried hole at all lest Booth regain his misguided courage and remember his justified desperation and begin digging up the entire forest in search of it. Clearly another option was needed, and later Mr. Gold—Rumplestiltskin—would be able to think on the available choices and make his decision and see it carried through. But for now…for now he needed time to retreat to his lair and lick his wounds, time to clean away the blood Booth’s deception had squeezed from old and misshapen scars, time to do away with the parent and reclaim the Dark One—no, the pawnbroker. So hard to recall who—what—he was when he was inwardly dazed and spinning and lost.

The pawnshop was too obvious as a hiding place for the knife, but it was only temporary and Rumplestiltskin—Gold—had been slowly building up wards around the shop ever since Belle had begun spending the majority of her days under his protection. The wards weren’t much, not yet, but they were enough to make do for now. Besides, he could not pull together the frayed and splitting ends of himself well enough to think of a better hiding place; he only knew that it was not safe in his possession while these dark and turbulent emotions swept through him, carrying his sanity away in chaotic waves of guilt and self-loathing and regret and grief.

After securing the knife, he locked the shop behind him. He left his car behind, not purposely, but he’d started walking immediately, trying to outrun Booth and who he had thought Booth was and himself— _always,_ always _trying to escape myself_ —and he was three blocks down before he realized it would have been so much quicker to just drive the short jaunt to his house. But what did it matter how quickly he got there? The house was empty and claustrophobic and full of nothing more than mementos of a past that could presently do nothing but cause him pain.

It was cold outside, no matter how far into spring the calendar said they were, and rain had found its way past his overcoat as he’d watched Booth dig that hole he’d hoped would be the final resting place of his cowardice, but he scarcely noticed the chill, the damp temperature nothing more than a dim detail lost to vague distance. More immediate, more pressing, were the flames that had taken up residence within his flesh.

Heat spread to every inch of his skin, every particle of his being, spiraling out from the dark, empty—and yet so very human—heart lodged like a wound in his chest. Once, he had thought he had no heart—had bound himself up in rules he employed and boundaries he wouldn’t cross and a code of conduct that couldn’t exactly be described as honorable but was there nonetheless—all to pretend to himself that he did have a heart even as he knew better. And yet Belle had proved that he _did_ have a heart by taking it with her when she left and giving it back to him when she came back into his life. She had filled it up with—not light, but brighter shadows, fewer scars, cleaning out some of the clutter and useless detritus of a life he’d left behind long ago, freshening it as she did everything else.

But now? Now it shrank down to a cold coal that radiated searing, blistering flames to consume him, providing him an aura of burning wrath and fury and vengeance and any other emotion he needed to call up to pretend he wasn’t really broken and weak and consumed in terrible, devastating grief so awful he thought it might literally tear him to pieces. The air, cold and sharp, tried to close in around him but couldn’t, not when the raging fever inside him staved it off, and he wrapped himself tighter into his carefully selected suit, his heavy coat, his fitted gloves, his cane—a reminder of the past when he needed none—trying to bind his flesh together with mere fabric as he had once bound his spirit up in contracts and fulfillments.

Like nearly everything he did, it was a useless attempt. No fabric, no contract, no deal, no magic could undo the great gaping wound that interfering stranger had so ably and deftly inflicted.

His son. _His son_. Memories and dreams and regrets tumbled one over another, filling him up so completely that he felt himself straining at the seams, everything inside him fighting to get out, threatening to burst apart the cloth and wood and skin keeping him so ineptly, inelegantly tied together.

He was infinitely relieved that he made it back to his house without seeing anyone else, though perhaps the burning heat inside him had repelled away any others who might have thought of walking a path that would intersect with his. Perhaps this world, like the last, had recognized that Rumplestiltskin—Mr. Gold’s—lot in life was to walk alone.

But even as he nearly fell through the front door with panic and threatening hysteria nipping at his heels, he spared an instant—a cooling instant—to wish that Belle were there to staunch the flow of lifeblood pouring out of his heart. _But no_. Not this Belle; she was kind and selfless and beautiful, yes, but she was young, too, and didn’t know just how wounded and crippled he was, didn’t know how close to his undoing he really was, didn’t understand the darkness that resided so close to his surface, and he couldn’t expect her to take that burden on herself, not when she was already shouldering the weight of being cursed.

But _his_ Belle? The one who’d chosen her fate willingly and knowingly, who’d come back to him freely, who’d asked about his life and his son and listened so sympathetically to the few words he’d managed to get out…oh, yes, he wished desperately that she were there to smooth his jagged edges and soothe his pain and stand between him and the obliterating darkness, his bright and shining champion.

But the house was dark and echoing and empty, and no strong, compassionate woman stepped from the shadows to envelop him in forgiving, healing arms. There was only him and him alone.

Just as it had been him and him alone for centuries, ever since a green portal had voraciously swallowed his son and snapped shut a void between them.

Slowly, unwaveringly, as if compelled by a spell so much more powerful than any he had ever before cast—and so he was—he moved upward, climbing a stair at a time, each step producing a pain in his leg that roared with feverish memories—the first smile his son had ever made, infant face beaming upward as his tiny feet kicked at the air. His first steps taken so awkwardly toward his father. His hand in Rumplestiltskin’s, small but holding on so fiercely. The tears he’d shed against Rumplestiltskin’s ill-fitting shirt during the cold nights, soothed by broken whispers. His presence at Rumplestiltskin’s knee, handing him straw to the accompanying creak of the spinning wheel as he excitedly chattered about the things that were important to his childish mind. The quiet support he’d shown his father when walking at his side through the town, ignoring the whispers and mutters behind their backs. His bravery and goodness and earnestness and loyalty and love and…and _anger_ when Rumplestiltskin had hung on so much more tightly to his cursed knife than he had to his own son’s hand.

Rumplestiltskin—not Mr. Gold anymore, not now, not when hiding behind a different name was frustratingly ineffectual and too cowardly even for him—Rumplestiltskin came to a halt before the door between his and Belle’s rooms, situated in the middle of the hall, a safe enough distance away from his bed to let him sleep yet close enough to assuage any fears that might arise in the dead of night.

 _How long since I’ve opened this door_? Months, surely, since the night he’d come home with _Emma_ on his lips, reverberating in his soul, a bundle of rent money in his pocket. He’d opened the door then and looked inside and stood there just past the threshold without moving lest his brittle skin crack and shatter and drift away like dust on the wind.

Rumplestiltskin didn’t want to open the door now, didn’t want to endure the torture of seeing made real and present all that _could_ have been, knowing he’d be broken yet again by the emptiness of all those hollow dreams, and how many times could a single person—human _or_ monster—be broken before there was nothing left to piece back together?

But August W. Booth—though he had done more to hurt and rend at Rumplestiltskin than even Regina, both of them accomplishing so much hurt with so few words: _She died_ and _I forgive you, Papa_ —he had also been the face Rumplestiltskin had just spent several days adding to his memories of his son, and he could not now bear the connection of that….that… _there is no word bad enough, not even for me, the connoisseur of names_ —that _stranger_ to his son, could not endure thinking of his son with any of August W. Booth, whoever he really was, attached to him. The shrine to his son, built within his own soul, had been tainted by the pretender’s presence and face, weeds obscuring and hiding and threatening to crack cold, rough stone so carefully and painstakingly erected over long years, and Rumplestiltskin could not allow that.

He had to destroy that connection he’d just spent so long building. Had to erase the hope and absolution he’d felt at those wished for words, at that freely given embrace, at the sound of a voice calling him _Papa_. Had to forget the sight of what he’d thought was his son taking the knife to control him, calling him Dark One, terror and determined intent gleaming from stony eyes. Had to forget both the fulfillment of all his dreams— _I forgive you, Papa_ —and all his nightmares— _I command thee, Dark One—_ occurring in the same night before being simultaneously proven nothing more than a deceptive ploy.

He needed to remember his son as he truly was. Needed to realize, to fully comprehend, that he was right back to where he’d been before all of this, no more than midway through his self-appointed quest, still separate from and hated by his beloved son.

So, gathering courage, craving some form of painful penance, Rumplestiltskin swung the door to this special room open, soundlessly, smoothly, with hands that shook more than they had when picking the lock of the stranger’s room and finding the drawing of the knife that could so easily control him.

It was a room like any other save for what it contained. A bed similar to the one in Belle’s room, with blankets of green, curtains of gold over the window…and in the closet were the clothes Rumplestiltskin had saved no matter how his position in life had changed, no matter how thick his skin had grown, no matter how he himself had altered. In the chest beside the bed were the belongings that had meant the most to his son, the possessions he wouldn’t have wanted to leave behind. Except that he _had_ left them, walking away from it all without a backward look, so excitedly intent on saving his father, so selfless and compassionate and determined.

This time Rumplestiltskin didn’t stay in the doorway. This time he stepped right into the center of the room.

It was as if he’d stepped into the center of an inferno, only this conflagration wasn’t composed of flames, but rather crafted of memories and sensations, sweeping through him with such unparalleled, unmitigated force that he found himself crumpling to his knees beneath the onslaught.

“Bae,” he whispered, and the Dark One, the feared pawnbroker, the infamous trickster, the notorious landlord—all disappeared and only Rumplestiltskin was left.

Sheep-herder.

Spinner.

Cripple.

Coward.

Father.

Failure.

Rumplestiltskin. For all that he had worked so hard to turn his name into something new and powerful, when all the window dressing was ripped away, he was still just an ordinary, cowardly man, alone because he’d driven away—let go of—the only good thing he’d ever been given.

“Bae,” he choked out, trying to drown out _Rumplestiltskin_ in the better name and only succeeding in emphasizing the flaws in himself.

For all that he never lost sight of his goal—for all that he had devoted centuries to finding and reclaiming his son—he also did his best on a day-to-day basis to forget Baelfire, to hide away in some deep corner of his soul all the love-wrapped, guilt-enveloped memories, because remembering? Remembering would destroy him.

But the utterance of his son’s name, the precious syllable falling from his lips so eagerly, so desolately—so utterly bereft—it ripped away the dust cover he’d laid over _all things Baelfire_ , and now, freed and pristine, they scorched their way through him, devouring everything within him and leaving behind only blasted wilderness.

“Bae,” he breathed again, and it _was_ like breathing. Like he’d been drowning for years and only now was he breaking free of the surface and gasping for oxygen, for life.

“Bae,” he whispered, and knew the next utterance of that treasured name would kill him, slay the beast, vanquish the monster, end the immortal. All that would be left were dust and ashes and a cautionary tale to warn others against cowardice.

His heart was seizing up within him, crushing him, stealing all breath and thoughts and redeeming plans, and all he could do was fight past smoke and haze and suffocation for that one breath more, to breathe out his final exhalation on that name he’d wrapped his own around, to finally bring an end to what should have ended uncounted years before.

“B—”

“Gold!”

 _Ah, yes,_ he found himself thinking. There _was_ one more thing too good and wondrous for him that he’d been given, one more bright treasure he’d thrown away as if it meant nothing. But she’d come back to him, and now suddenly she was there, her arms around him, her fingers on his brow. She touched him and instantly there was cool, soothing relief of the scorching heat still enveloping him, the conflagration that had possessed him falling back before the presence of his bright champion.

She was cool and quiet and _there_ , crouching at his side and drawing him to lean against her. She said nothing, not after that first exclamation when she saw him, but words weren’t needed. Her silence stroked away the roaring in his ears; her cold hands and gentle fingers fought wars with the flames and beat them back; her gentleness, her soft breath, edged with the rain falling outside, negated the fierce fury and roiling darkness swallowing him up.

She was there, and Rumplestiltskin didn’t even care that she was witnessing his damaging, disturbing weakness, didn’t even spare a thought to realize that she could destroy him in this moment with no more than a word or a touch. He only leaned into her, and pressed his face into the curve of her neck and shoulder, and wept.

He tried not to—he did not _want_ to—not because of pride or wrath, but because he had never allowed himself to weep for Bae. Bae wasn’t dead, wasn’t lost forever, wasn’t irretrievably gone. He would see him again, would have the chance to apologize and grovel and atone—he’d unmade and remade the world entirely so he could have that chance, anchoring the curse to his son’s existence—and weeping for him…well, it would make it seem that he was giving up on him, that he was admitting defeat.

And he could not do that. He _couldn’t_.

But he wept anyway. And maybe he didn’t weep for Bae. Maybe he wept for himself. And it was all right to weep for himself because, as he well knew, he _was_ a lost cause.

 Gradually, dimly, Rumplestiltskin realized that Belle was raining kisses down on his hair, his temples, his cheeks, placing each one as tenderly and gently as if wrapping bandages around weeping wounds. The tiny, intimate touches crashed into him with all the force of an explosion. He felt his heart seizing up again, this time not with grief but with gratitude and amazement—and love. More love than he had thought he could contain, more love than he had thought he had room for next to the overwhelming, overriding, overpowering love he possessed for Baelfire. Belle’s arms, slender and small and just long enough to circle around his shoulders and clasp him to herself, held him together, making him whole in a way all his contracts and magic and disguises had never been able to do.

“It wasn’t him,” he choked out when he could finally piece together the words he needed. “It wasn’t Bae.”

He’d thought hearing himself say it aloud, so stark and bare and undeniable, would steal from him what little self-possession he still retained, but with Belle there, tightening her arms around him, her scent surrounding him, keeping him safe and protected, the statement instead helped steady him. August W. Booth wasn’t Bae, but Bae was still out there, waiting for him, surely— _surely he_ knows _I’d come for him, that I wouldn’t leave him alone_ , he thought for the millionth time, wishing he could believe it—and there was still a chance to receive the forgiveness of his abandoned son. He had to believe that. If he didn’t, there was nothing left for him.

Nothing…except Belle.

And Bae, yes, always Bae, because out of everything in life that he no longer believed in, he absolutely refused to stop believing that Bae was alive.

“Belle,” he found himself saying because he needed to say _something_ , because he could not restrain himself from speaking aloud one of the two names that no amount of other, gathered, magic-imbued names could ever equal, and at least she was here, alive, breathing, _with him_. At least _she_ had come back.

 _And that’s what makes all of this even more painful_ , he realized. He had _wanted_ the stranger to be Bae—wanted it with a passion he could hardly contain—because then it would mean that Bae _wanted_ to find Rumplestiltskin, that he was actively seeking his cowardly father, that he hadn’t given up all his ties to their world. Because if August W. Booth was Baelfire, Rumplestiltskin had succeeded in his quest and everything he had done, every deal he had made, every year of maddening isolation he had spent—every lie he had told Belle, every touch he had walked away from, every kiss he had avoided—all of it was worth it.

But it wasn’t.

“It wasn’t him,” he said again, and he was no longer lax in Belle’s grip, was instead holding onto her as if he were drowning and she was the only thing that could keep him out of the water. “I did it—faced him, confessed, handed over _everything_ …and it wasn’t him. He forgave me and then he…he _reviled_ me…and all of it nothing more than an attempt to control me.”

Her arms tightened still further, holding him together by sheer force of will, of compassion, of love. And Rumplestiltskin loved her for it even as he hated it. Hated it, because accepting her support, her affection, her presence—it seemed a betrayal. He had vowed to love nothing but Bae, to give his life to nothing outside the quest of finding his beloved, abandoned son—and yet, he had broken that vow, broken it time and time again, for Belle. By leaning on her, by clinging to her, by turning his attention to finding and protecting and loving her, he was betraying his own son.

Here, in this room, Rumplestiltskin didn’t even have to try to envision Baelfire. The only good thing he had ever done, no matter the boy’s blood, no matter the rumors. The only thing that had ever managed to matter more to Rumplestiltskin than his fear. The one thing he had loved without reservation, without hesitation, without excuse. His son, and Rumplestiltskin didn’t know if most parents admired their children so greatly, but he had, had admired Bae even before his tenth birthday, admired him so much that he’d wanted to be like Bae, wanted to learn a bit of that nobility and courage and selflessness for himself. He wanted it, but every day he failed to measure up to that example, and now Belle’s very presence was yet more proof of his weakness, his fallibility, his selfishness…and still he could not— _would_ not—let go of her.

He needed her. He loved her. And he thought, he hoped, that Bae would not begrudge him this. That perhaps he would understand. After all, there were no two braver or more selfless people than his Belle and his Bae.

 _How ironic_ , he couldn’t help but think, _that a coward is so drawn to the courageous._ It was just a mystery as to what they saw in _him_.

“Oh, Gold,” Belle murmured, and she rested her brow against his, framed his face with her small hands. Nothing else, just those two words—not even his true name—and yet it crumpled the last of his barriers, and he fell forward, bent in on himself, huddled on the floor of a shrine built to a boy he had loved and a man he didn’t know but wanted to learn.

Belle simply held him. She betrayed no sign of impatience at his weakness, no hint of distaste at his tears, not even a flicker of disdain for this blatant vulnerability, and with that open, honest acceptance, he was able to speak aloud his greatest fear, the one burning away all chills and ice to consume him in feverish terror that had so often before led to staggering loss.

“I did what I’ve spent all the years since he left wanting and needing and preparing to do,” he whispered into her hair, his hands falling away from her, not willing to hold her to him should she wish to walk away like everyone else had. “So…what if I can’t do it again? It took everything I had to do it once, to finally make the right choice…what if I’m not… _enough_ …to do it a second time, when it really counts, when it’s the _right_ man? What if—”

“Shh.” Belle tilted his head up so she could see him, her fingers light against his chin, but he kept his eyes turned away, unwilling to let her see just how terrified and hurting he really was. “Gold,” she said, her voice firm and steady, unwavering, completely free of doubt or uncertainty, and he suddenly, vehemently envied her. “You will. Because your son…you _love_ him, and so you will do whatever you need to do. You have done it once already, and if you can say it to a stranger on only a hope and a guess, then of course you can say it to your own son. And your son will see what I see in you, and he will forgive you. He will love you as you love him, as…as I love you.”

“Belle, dearest,” he murmured. No other words were worthy of being connected with that name, certainly not his own pathetic declaration of flawed love. But he didn’t have to say it; he’d never had to say aloud all the things he thought and felt for her to see and understand and accept them.

Slowly, suddenly calm, his whole self hollowed out, light and empty and free, Rumplestiltskin eased himself to a better position, leaning his back against the dresser filled with the precious articles of clothing that could never be replaced. He kept his arm around Belle, though, tugging her with him. She went willingly, nestling up against his chest as if she had been waiting her whole life to find that exact spot. Rumplestiltskin had not been waiting—had not been expecting or even hoping since all hope had been taken away from him—but now, after feeling her fit just so, he would have waited a thousand lifetimes to feel it again.

And looking around at the belongings he had gathered for Bae, possessions caught between the boy Rumplestiltskin had known so well and the man he didn’t, he almost imagined he could already feel Bae’s presence with them, sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning forward with such intent excitement, or perhaps standing, pacing, prowling the room and examining everything with abundant curiosity. And that, too, he would wait a thousand lifetimes to see and experience and treasure.

“This is my son’s room,” Rumplestiltskin began quietly, feeling the need to give Belle something in exchange for the reassurance she offered him. _Wanting_ to give her this piece of himself that she had been waiting so long to share in. She was not _his_ Belle…and yet she was. She was everything she had been, almost untouched by the curse, and memories or no memories, she came back to him every morning and she said she loved him.

“He’s never lived here, of course,” Rumplestiltskin continued in a small, hoarse voice. “But I hope, Belle. I _hope_. It is all I have.”

“Not all,” she breathed, not an interruption, just a soft correction, her cool hand sliding up to rest against his neck. In response, his own arms tightened around her, settling her even more closely against him, as he stretched his weak leg out before him with a grimace.

“The green of the bedspread—it was his favorite color. The first time I could afford to make—buy him a cloa—a coat, it was in that color. And the gold—not for the name or the metal, you understand, but because it was the color his eyes sparked in firelight.”

He spoke in past tense, but it wasn’t because he had given up, or because he had resigned his son to the past alone; rather, it was because he had thought and spun on this enough to know that he would never again see the beautiful, loving boy that had slipped from his hands in more ways than one. That boy _was_ in the past, alive solely in Rumplestiltskin’s memory. But his son _was_ out there, somewhere, and Belle was right—Rumplestiltskin _would_ do anything to win the right to get to know the new Bae and love him as much as he had his boy.

Belle listened intently as Rumplestiltskin spoke, telling her the story behind everything in the room, sharing pieces of Bae’s life with her, edited only in that he did not mention a world with magic. He could not tell her how he had lost Bae, not when she would not, with only curse memories, be able to understand it. Or at least, that was the excuse Rumplestiltskin gave himself, reluctant to admit just how scared it made him to even consider telling Belle what he had done with his son, to think of her reaction at realizing the heinousness of his crimes, to wonder just how sharply her disbelieving look and disillusioned eyes would pierce him. Even before, in the Dark Castle, before kisses and lies and solitude, he had not been able to tell her, much less now, when he needed her so very badly.

But for the first time, he actually knew that he _would_ tell her. Not this day—but one day, someday.

Eventually, when words ran out and silence grew stale and his leg protested all that had lately been demanded of it, Belle helped Rumplestiltskin stand. She ducked beneath his left arm and supported him without comment, her arm wrapping around his waist so familiarly that it took him a moment to realize this was the first time he had let her help him in this way. For an instant, he wanted to pull away, to stand on his own, to hide how much he needed to lean on her, but the compulsion passed quickly, and instead he tentatively tightened his fingers around her shoulder. He was rewarded with her quick smile.

They were almost to the stairs when Rumplestiltskin belatedly realized that the door to Belle’s room was open. He darted a sidelong glance to her, afraid to draw her attention to it, not quite sure whether he wanted her to see the room or not. She seemed to have lost all memory of staying in his house, of making it so briefly a home, but perhaps, just perhaps, there was a glimmer buried there beneath all the false memories and new, real memories.

Was it fear or hope that made his steps slow as he passed the room that had for so short a time been hers? Maybe it was both, or maybe neither, but either way, she glanced into the room and her own steps stumbled just slightly. Her hair hid her expression from him, and only an instant later, she had righted herself and was helping him negotiate the stairs. Rumplestiltskin said nothing, too overwhelmed to ask her what thoughts passed behind her shining eyes.

She unerringly led him to the sitting room where he had once set out an indoor picnic before a quietly burning fire. If he had been thinking straight, he would have redirected them to his study or the kitchen or anywhere but this room that he had diligently, defensively avoided since that fateful night.

“Here,” Belle said, guiding him to the couch. After slipping his suit coat off and slinging it over the back of the couch, Rumplestiltskin sat, grateful for the relief to his leg. He very carefully avoided looking over near the desk.

“T-thank you,” he offered clumsily when she stepped back, standing before him so awkwardly, her hands twisted before her. Her back was to the desk and what lay on the floor before it like some sort of bizarre offering.

“Shall I get you some tea?” she asked, seizing on the idea so quickly that he wondered what he had done to make her nervous. _Perhaps she_ did _recognize the room_ , he thought.

“Tea would be nice, dearest,” he managed to say even past the panic grinding harsh grains into his throat. He watched her closely. “You know where it is?”

She hesitated, bit her lip, then shrugged. “I’ll find it.”

Rumplestiltskin swallowed as soon as she fled his presence. Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, he bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to stay here, sitting so complacently so close to the exact spot where he’d been filled with hope that had been brutally obliterated by despair when Belle crumpled into his arms, so limp and unresponsive and cold. He didn’t know how long he’d lain there on the floor, holding her, kissing her because some tiny, idealistic part of him, still untouched by the Dark One, was yet capable of hope and dreams and taking chances.

Not that his kiss had worked. She hadn’t been dead, but she hadn’t woken up either, and _his_ Belle hadn’t yet opened her eyes to look at him with all the moments that had passed between them resting there in sparkling blue, all the months she’d been his caretaker and the weeks she’d been his friend and the days she’d been his True Love. He loved this new Belle, this Belle French, loved her more easily and immediately than he’d thought he’d be able to, but the pile of glistening shards scattered across the floor would mean nothing to this Belle while it would mean _everything_ to his Belle.

So close and yet so far. Both Belle and Bae, always just slightly out of his reach, not quite fully his—the story of his life.

“Gold…what is that?”

Rumplestiltskin snapped his head up to see Belle standing in the doorway, a tray held in her hands, her eyes locked on the shattered porcelain he’d been doing everything in his power _not_ to look at.

“What is that?” she repeated, and still she had not moved, her face white and drawn.

“Just…just a cup,” he choked out, staring at her as intently as she stared at the rubble of his heart. “It’s broken.”

“But…but why?” And Belle looked as if she might cry, the tray shaking in her hands with the rattling sound of clinking silver.

“I dropped it.”

“You did?” Finally, she tore her gaze from all that remained of the chipped cup, met his eyes, something familiar fighting to tear its way free of a curse. “Did…did you mean to?”

He gave the shadow of a smile, fleeting and almost invisible. “I never do _mean_ to let go. But good intentions…they don’t count for anything.”

Slowly, Belle moved forward, set the tray on the coffee table, busied her hands serving the tea. He watched her, unable to sift through the thousands of words he knew to find a combination that worked for this instance. Belle lifted his tea—in a plain, bland teacup—and offered it to him. Reaching out to take it, he was frozen by the steadiness of her gaze, as if she had made some inner decision and was now determined, resolute, fixed.

“Sometimes they do count,” she said quietly. “Sometimes…sometimes good intentions can divide men from monsters.”

His breath caught in his throat. _She remembers!_

“Sometimes,” she added, her eyes falling to the ordinary teacup, held between both their hands, “good intentions can lead us to the right place.” She looked up at him through her eyelashes, and she was smiling, dimples appearing like magic. “Like you rescuing me, showing up at my father’s house, giving me a job. You can’t tell me your intentions then were bad.”

For just a moment, Rumplestiltskin let his eyes slide closed, biting down bitter disappointment. “Those weren’t intentions,” he said when he could finally manage to open his eyes and look at her with a halfway normal expression, finally taking the teacup out of her hands, cradling its warmth between his fingers. “Those were actions, which _are_ what counts.”

Belle conceded with a half nod, but as she picked up her own cup and moved to sit beside him, she added, “Maybe. But good actions have to start with good intentions.”

“Yet good intentions can lead to wrong actions,” he countered. “In the end, all that matters is _what_ you do.”

“I think _why_ you do it matters too,” she said, leaning into him, warming him where before she had cooled him.

Rumplestiltskin took a sip of his tea, deliberating on what he should say. In the end, exhausted by his disappointment and lulled by her presence, he chose to remain silent. Bae was too fresh and painful still in his thoughts, memories too near the surface, for him to want to have this conversation. He too well knew how little attention reality paid to intent; he had never intended to let go of Bae, but in the end, he’d still lost his son, and he knew without a doubt that it was his fault. But Belle was good and innocent and pure and brave and she would never let go, so maybe to her there was no difference between intent and action because she was always strong enough to act on her intentions.

For some reason, that thought both encouraged and depressed him. A strange reaction, but he didn’t dwell on it. In lieu of the overpowering emotions that had swept so turbulently through him, he was now full of only deep exhaustion that smothered that opaque sea of rage always resting in the center of his being.

“I’m sorry about your cup.” Belle’s quiet murmur, whispered more to her tea than him, startled him.

“It’s not your fault,” he said in a pitiful attempt to shrug it away. In truth, very little had hurt as much as the sound of that cup shattering against the floor, but Belle had still breathed and lived, so the pain was bearable.

Belle put down her teacup and turned into him, wrapping an arm around his chest. She didn’t say anything, just leaned her head against his shoulder as he finished his own tea and set aside his own cup—truly _just a cup_. He turned and wrapped her more fully in his embrace, shifting so that she could lean her back against him, sliding his arms around her and twining his fingers through hers. Letting out a deep cleansing breath, Rumplestiltskin tipped his head back against the couch and allowed his eyes to slide closed, and though only hours earlier he would have sworn he would never be able to sleep with the gushing wound opened in his chest, he was soon soothed to sleep by the rhythmic feel of Belle breathing against him.

His exhaustion weighed on him like a cloying net, sleep dragging him beneath its silken surface and holding him down with the greedy, demanding hands of a siren, and he felt himself drowning beneath the suffocating cloak of unconsciousness, gasping for air until sparks swam in front of his closed eyes, scattering nightmarish visions before him. They were the same nightmares that too often visited him and chased him out of bed, made him think teacups could laugh and cry and taunt, sent him out into the cold night to walk the streets of this uprooted town and try to remember the world that had shaped him.

Old nightmares of Bae slipping away, reaching out a hand, or worse, curling his hand into a fist, turning his face away, harsh words like poisoned darts aimed so precisely at the vulnerable places in Rumplestiltskin’s inadequate armor. New nightmares of Bae confronting him, pulling out a curving dagger with a name inscribed across its silver blade, plunging the weapon into Rumplestiltskin’s chest, ensuring that the last sight he ever saw was his son’s perfect face being covered and hidden by golden scales, the eyes that had once sparked gold transformed into cold, reptilian orbs.

That was the worst of the lot, and like the cold shock of icy water, it was enough to propel Rumplestiltskin free of the draining exhaustion. He woke with a start, his body rigid and a gasp emerging from his throat to break the silence of the dark room lit only by the lamp near the door that Belle had flicked on earlier.

Belle woke with him, her eyes wide and unfocused in the dim glow but her hands reaching automatically to him. Rumplestiltskin tried to regulate his breathing, tried to calm himself, tried to shake off the vestiges of the dream, but it was hard when all he could see was the stranger leveling his knife at him. He had almost forgotten what it was to have that constant worry in the back of his head, the niggling knowledge that he could be controlled, possessed, commanded, made even more helpless than he had been as a lame spinner.

His body shuddered intermittently, a delayed reaction to the events of the night. Rumplestiltskin was suddenly glad for the shadows in the room, grateful that they concealed the tears on his cheeks.

“Shh,” Belle murmured, and Rumplestiltskin turned to her. He knew he shouldn’t, but with the nightmares lingering into these waking moments, he couldn’t remind himself of all the reasons he should hide away his weakness. He only knew that she was slipping her arms around his neck, that her hair against his cheek was soft and liquid, that she smelled of roses and books and something as ephemeral as starlight, that she did not draw away from the feel of his mouth brushing against her cheek as he clung to her.

“Don’t…don’t leave me,” he breathed out, a plea he could no sooner have refrained from uttering than he could abandon his search for Bae.

Belle went rigid, her arms loosening almost instinctively.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Rumplestiltskin let his own arms fall away from her. “I’m…I shouldn’t have said that,” he muttered, avoiding her gaze. For what must have been the thousandth time in his life, he wished he could turn back time and undo a foolish mistake that would end up costing him more than he could bear to pay. _Always,_ always, _read the fine print._ “Of course you—I know that you don’t want—”

“No, I…” Belle placed slender fingers over his mouth, the sensation vivid and startling. Her eyes, crystalline and almost translucent, pulled in the shadows and reflected back light. “I’ll try not to leave you, but…but I think…I think you might have to send me away.”

Rumplestiltskin’s eyes narrowed. Here, finally, with a problem, some form of opposition, he could set the nightmare aside, could begin to erect strong barriers between himself and what had happened with the stranger. “What do you mean?” he asked Belle, daringly allowing his hand to once more rest on her waist.

“I…” Belle bit her lip, avoiding his eyes as intently as he had avoided hers. Her hands played with his tie, which hung loose and slack from his unbuttoned collar. “I won’t leave you, Gold. _I_ won’t. But…”

“Tell me,” he exhorted, the command almost inaudible. One of her curls tickled the back of his wrist, but he didn’t move. He watched Belle, picking out signs he had missed earlier, marks of tension and stress in the tightness around her eyes, the crimped lines beside her mouth, the way she kept her fingers busy against his tie.

Finally, after a long hesitation during which Rumplestiltskin waited with Gold’s patience, Belle spoke in a painfully steady voice. “I’m crazy.” At his sharp inhalation, she looked up at him, a glance so quick it almost didn’t even happen. “I don’t even mean I’m _going_ crazy. I mean…I’m _already_ crazy. There _was_ a reason I was locked up in a mental ward.”

Belle swallowed, hard, and Gold was amazed yet again by her courage as she forced her calm words out past her shallow breathing and the veneer of transparent tears shimmering over pale blue eyes. “I…see things, objects that move and talk to me. They tell me…terrible things, things that aren’t true.” Her eyes flicked to his and away again, skittish and… _and afraid_ , he realized with shock. _She is afraid_.

“And I’m losing time,” she continued in a flat voice. “I’m somewhere, and then I blink and I’m somewhere else and it’s hours later and I don’t know how I got there.” She was starting to crack, the veneer chipping away to reveal hysteria she’d obviously been fighting all on her own for who knew how long. Gold pulled her tighter against him, smoothed a now-steady hand over dark hair. “I don’t know what’s real anymore! I used to be able to tell if they weren’t real, if they were just…delusions. But…but I wanted to come here, to be here for you when you got back, and…and I stood in the street and talked to a light-post for ten minutes before I realized that…that light-posts _don’t_ talk. I’m losing my mind, Gold, and the only time I’m free of delusions is when—” She cut herself off very abruptly, something like horror flooding her eyes before she averted her gaze, leaning her face into his shoulder to hide her expression.

“When?” he asked her insistently, dropping his hand from her hair to her hand, still clasping his tie, and caressing her palm with his thumb. He wondered, almost idly, if Regina thought that Henry was safe from this form of reprisal because the town already considered the boy crazy. He spared a tiny piece of the flowing glacial lava that was his fury to be surprised that his belief in Regina’s love for the young boy had been proven unfounded. “When are you safe, Belle?” he asked again.

“I don’t want to tell you,” she admitted.

Gold felt like he had been slapped, tried his utmost not to show it. He kept his arm wrapped around her, kept brushing his thumb back and forth over her palm, but inwardly, he was hurt.

She leaned deeper into him, her soft breath ghosting past his neck, soothing him. “If I tell you, you’ll either be scared of me or you’ll feel obligated, and I don’t think I can bear either of those reactions.”

“Belle.” He took her chin between his fingertips and tilted her head until she had no choice but to look at him. “Belle, I can be brave—for you, I can be. And as to feeling obligated…there is no one else for me, Belle. I’m yours. Forever.”

At that final word, her shield of neutral dispassion spiderwebbed and shattered, and she began to weep, her face crumpling, her spine bending, and she collapsed in his arms much as he had in hers earlier, sobbing quietly into his chest. Bewildered, frightened, Gold wrapped himself around her. He was not sure if these were good tears or bad tears, sign of relief or harbinger of doom, but he absorbed them nonetheless and wished he could do more.

“I love you,” Belle said, the words marred by sobs, and then she was kissing him, her tears on his lips, her hands in his hair, her desperation on his soul. “I love you,” she repeated between kisses, and he could not help but kiss her back, holding her small body— _she is so tiny! so small! so fragile!_ —tightly, trying to protect her from anything and everything, even from himself.

“Belle,” he managed to get out, reminding himself that he needed to know this, needed to know where Regina’s attack faltered so he could exploit the weakness.

She didn’t stop kissing him, didn’t pull away, but she took his head in her hands, closed her eyes, and whispered her secret into his mouth. “The delusions disappear when I’m with you. You chase them away. You’re the only real thing in the world.” And she was not kissing him anymore because she was crying, shrinking in on herself within the circle of his arms.

He was frozen, motionless, suspended between one breath and the next, suspicion rising up within him. Maybe Regina did not want him to smell her touch on Belle, did not dare risk invoking whatever spell she had cast near him. Maybe the magic she had found and used could not stand against his presence, as if it were fairy dust, diluted and failing when mixed with his.

Or maybe it was a curse. A curse that recognized its creator. A curse cast with the intention of taking away happy endings. A curse that stole the pieces of people that mattered the most—like intelligence and focus…and sanity.

 _Not Regina’s doing at all_ , he thought numbly. _Mine. My fault_. Again, he was responsible for driving Belle to the brink of ruin. Again, it was he alone who came so close to breaking her.

“You…” She tried to rally herself, tried to reclaim her mask, pushing herself up off him. She seemed oblivious to the fact that her hands were gripping his shirt in tight, white-knuckled fists. “I’m dangerous, Gold. You have to send me back, lock me away again.”

Denial, absolute and crushing, burned through his astonishment and guilt. “Never!” he hissed, crushing her against him, needing to feel the weight and warmth of her. “I promised I would never send you away again, Belle. I told you it was forever, and I don’t go back on my word.”

There was relief and happiness shining in her eyes as she finally raised her gaze to his, but there was also concern and fear and stubbornness. “I’m dangerous,” she confessed, and now she was steady, calm, unwavering in her defense of him. She smoothed her hands over his shirt, undoing the wrinkles she had made. “The first time it happened, I was leaving Dr. Hopper’s office and then I blinked and it was six hours later. I was standing in the kitchen holding a knife. And if Papa hadn’t…” She was crying again, crying still, and he hated himself for breaking her when Regina and decades of imprisonment hadn’t been able to. Now her hands fisted in his shirt, shudders wracking her body. “What if I’d had that knife and I hadn’t woken up when Papa came in? What if I’d…if I’d _hurt_ him? And the time when the mirror was shattered in your shop—what if I hurt _you_? I can’t, Gold! I can’t hurt you!”

She was panicking, her breaths rapid and uneven, but when he hugged her, she didn’t hesitate in throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face against his neck. He wanted to rage, to shout, to smash and destroy and rend until reality itself looked as damaged as he felt. But Belle was here, fragile and quiet and wanting, and he needed to relearn kindness, to reacquire tenderness, to pretend to gentleness. So he did not shout, did not leap to his feet, did not flail about in a fit of dark destruction as emotion rose up to engulf him in a haze of sensation he was not used to. Instead, he cupped the back of her head, rested his chin on her hair, stroked circles against her back.

“You won’t,” he promised her, and he meant it. He never made promises he couldn’t keep, not anymore, and so he promised because he would not allow his curse to destroy her. “You won’t hurt anyone, and you’re not crazy.” He ignored her disbelieving scoff. “This isn’t you, Belle, or your fault. I’ll fix it. It’ll be all right.”

Whether she believed him or just was happy to have finally shared these inner demons, she melted into him, boneless in his arms, and he was awed, astonished, amazed at her trust in him. “I’m sorry,” she muttered after a moment, taking a deep breath and leaning her forehead against his. She looked up at him with clear, guileless eyes, and he nearly wept himself at the innocence resting there, the goodness she contained within her, the purity he held next to his flesh. “I was trying to be brave. I _wanted_ to be brave. But…I guess I’m not.”

He chuckled his incredulousness, brows upraised. “You _are_ brave, Belle. You’ve never _not_ been brave, and you’ve taught me what it is to not be a coward. So let _me_ be brave for you this once.”

She smiled a small smile, traced his features with gentle fingers. “You’re not a coward, Gold, and no matter how many times you say otherwise, that won’t change. You went to meet your son—the man you thought was your son,” she amended before he could do more than open his mouth, shaken by this moment and the other, so similar, so different one overlaid atop it. “Went to meet him even though you thought he’d turn you away. You asked his forgiveness, and already you’re planning to do so again. Courage comes in many different forms—and one of those is the willingness to correct mistakes.”

He knew she was wrong, knew she saw him through the patina of her own virtues, but he _wanted_ her words to be true. So he kissed her on the mouth, drank in her courage, absorbed it inside himself, hoping she gained something from him in return though he could not imagine what.

“Stay here,” he begged raggedly when he tore his lips from hers. “Stay with me.”

It was not the same plea he had made moments earlier; it was slightly different, and yet he meant this one even more than he’d meant the last, if that were possible.

She regarded him with shining eyes, her breath catching in her throat as if she weren’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

“You said you’re fine when you’re with me,” he added, “so stay with me. Don’t go.” And that was, really, the same plea, spoken again, torn from the depths of his inner being, because he needed her, needed her despite the fact that he’d long ago promised himself to never again _need_ anybody, to never again have to rely on the arbitrary, deceptive goodwill of others.

But Belle was different.

“Stay.” A single word, all he wanted, all he hoped for, all he knew was too good to be true.

The hope that had sparked in crystalline eyes was quenched, as if the word had been sand cast over sputtering flames, replaced by ashy disappointment. Belle pushed herself away from Gold, released his tie and struggled to her feet. “I knew it!” she exclaimed, more to herself than to him. “I knew if I told you, you’d feel like you had to offer. I don’t want you to—”

Rumplestiltskin did what he should have done decades before, what he had wanted to and yet hadn’t been able to do. His son had been prominent in his thoughts then, too, standing in the dungeon he’d locked her away in, turning his back, waiting for the last echoes of her disappearing footsteps to fade away, feeling as if he had been locked up more surely than she had been, trapped and abandoned and unable to move because he knew he’d made the right choice, knew Bae deserved his focus and attention and very life.

But he was Gold now, and when he’d thought for the first time that Belle might actually be alive, when he’d resolved to find her, to rescue her, to protect her, he had promised himself he would be brave, determined to change himself into the man she needed and deserved. He could never be that, not truly, not fully, but he could try—and he had tried, only to fail again and again—but this was his chance. His chance to be brave, to make the right choice, to take hold of his own fate.

So he reached out a lightning-quick hand and caught hold of hers, not quite sure how he’d made it so swiftly and effortlessly to his feet. “Had to?” he repeated with arched brows, frowning down at her to disguise the smile that only hours earlier would have seemed impossible to form. “Dearest, I’ve been wanting to ask you to come home with me since the day I saw you sitting on the wall in your father’s yard. Since the day you came into my shop and asked for your job back. Every day, all day, I’ve been wanting to beg you to stay. I just haven’t been brave enough—until now.”

She was silent, watching him uncertainly, the corners of her mouth tucked inward as she studied him, gauged his sincerity. He felt the beginnings of panic birthed in him; he didn’t think he was strong enough, right now, to watch her walk away, even if it was only to go back to her father’s.

“I have a room all ready for you,” he added, almost desperately. “You saw it—upstairs. And your father can visit as often as you like—”

“The room,” she interrupted, twining her fingers through his, her expression abruptly contemplative, as if some connection had been made in her mind. Gold squeezed her hand, watched her, waiting, poised over a precipice. “I stayed here before, didn’t I, after you rescued me from the hospital? I remember the room; I woke up there before I ran to Papa’s. That’s why I remember the blue coat. That’s where I got all the clothes from. And here—” She disentangled one of her hands from his, reached into her pocket, and withdrew a dark red handkerchief. Gold had to look at it twice—reluctantly tearing his eyes from Belle—before he recognized it as the handkerchief he’d given her in the hospital. “This is yours, isn’t it?” she asked quietly. “You gave it to me?”

He nodded, though she didn’t need his confirmation. Realization had already lightened blue eyes.

“I can’t believe I forgot that!” she said, recapturing his free hand, the handkerchief caught between their joined palms. “How could I not remember you?”

“I don’t care what you forget,” he told her soberly, sincerely. “Just don’t go. Stay.”

“Really?” Her expression lit up in a way he had seen before on a long ago day still branded into his memory. Her hands in his hair—the latest in a barrage of intimate touches she had sent his way, overwhelming him—her joy making him dizzy, the feel of her lips lingering on his. This time, though, there was no receding curse to wake the slumbering fury within him.

“I don’t take back deals, dearest,” he teased. He stumbled back a step when she threw herself at him, molding herself so tightly to him that he thought she might actually melt into him.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Yes, I’ll stay.” Her lips tugged upward, mischievous and meaningful. “I’ll stay forever.”

He could not help himself, not with that word on her lips. He bent down and kissed her, fiercely, wholly, passionately, because twice she had sealed her eternal fate to  him and twice he had lost her, but this time…this time he would keep her. This time he would hold on. This time, he would finally, _finally_ , match action to intent.

 ---

It was late enough—or rather, early enough—that there was no sense in trying to go back to sleep. Belle insisted that Gold use the shower first, and when he emerged, tired but dressed and ready to face the new day, she had breakfast ready for him. He was glad there were a few dresses left behind from her brief stay here so that she didn’t have to return to her father’s to change. He was confident, finally, that she would return to him even if she did leave, but he did not want to chance it. Even during the scant moments she was in the bathroom, leaving him alone, he had felt his newfound contentment and resolve fading away, submerged beneath the rising surges of his fury.

The stranger had tricked him, had played him, and had either used the Blue Fairy to do so or had cunningly manipulated her into sending Rumplestiltskin to the desired conclusion. There were very few who felt comfortable going to the Blue Fairy with an ulterior motive, even fewer who knew her well enough to ensure she said the words he needed, and so that narrowed down the choices of who the mysterious stranger truly was. And of those choices, Pinocchio was the only one unaccounted for. He seemed the likeliest suspect, particularly when considering the sincerity behind his choked replies and the way he’d barely been able to say the word _Papa_ —not to mention the fact that his father was the one who’d fashioned the enchanted wardrobe that sent the savior to this world.

Gold felt a thin smile twist his lips at the thought of repaying August W. Booth a little bit of the pain he had inflicted. He couldn’t go around killing the puppet—firstly, because his face still seemed a shadow of Bae’s, and secondly because Emma, unfortunately, trusted him—but it seemed the curse was working on punishing the trickster for Gold, so a bit of vicarious revenge, a show of power, would have to suffice. It would mean he’d have to see the wooden boy again, have to come face to face with him, but this time, he’d be the one with the trick up his sleeve, and that would have to be enough. At least until he no longer needed the overgrown branch to help convince the savior to buckle down and get it over with.

In point of fact, Gold actually owed the puppet a small bit of gratitude for recalling him to the true purpose of all that Rumplestiltskin did. He had allowed himself to grow distracted since finding out that Belle was alive, had taken his eyes off his all-important goal, had forgotten more due to Belle’s beguiling smiles and miraculous return than he had ever been able to forget while spinning common things into glittering value. And while he certainly had no intention—that word again, and a shiver of foreboding ran through him despite his newfound resolve—of sending her away again, he knew he had to turn his attention back to his centuries-spanning plan. Belle wasn’t a weakness, he refused to call her that, but she did make him vulnerable, and this reminder of who he had been and who he was seeking to reclaim was also a reminder that he could not afford to be vulnerable.

His plan. _Yes_. It was time for Emma to finally be pushed into believing, time Regina tasted real desperation, time for magic to be returned to him, to _them_ , magic brought by True Love, imbued with True Love, and bestowed on those touched by True Love’s child. His plan, constantly refined and tweaked and adjusted, had been decades in the making, circumventing worlds, peering past centuries, manipulating fate and chance and any other cosmic or divine force that could transcend the barriers of time and space, and now it would not fail him.

He would push Regina, ignore her, cast her aside, refuse to deal, and make his own plans to leave her tiny, transplanted kingdom. In turn, feeling it all slipping through her fingers, she would lash out in rage and panic, strike out at Emma through any means open to her. And Emma would react, volatile and desperate, confused and out of her depth, and in so doing, she would force Henry to go to extreme lengths to prove that he wasn’t crazy and that the mother he idealized was indeed a savior worthy of his adulation and praise.

There were several ways it could go from there, depending on what method Regina chose and in what direction Emma jumped, but no matter the specifics, Rumplestiltskin was confident that it would all end up in a situation similar to the ones that had started it all—a flawed parent, a desperate child, a sacrificial act, a determined quest, and True Love’s Kiss as the next generation repeated the prior one’s mistakes and triumphs. A tale the turning of which Rumplestiltskin was completely and utterly familiar with, albeit in twisted, misshapen form.

Oh yes, he knew how it would all go down.

This world had a game known as dominoes, an utterly simplistic representation of what people were like—made to stand and react in preordained ways, lined up one after another, positioned and manipulated by players outside themselves, so alike in appearance with only outward dots to differentiate them, all inwardly made of the same materials, and all so liable to tumble down, taking whole rows of others with them. Rumplestiltskin had once been one of those tiles, manipulated and controlled and knocked aside. _Never again!_ he promised himself savagely. _Never again will I be powerless, abandoned, helpless!_ This time, the power was his. This time, it was he who controlled and manipulated and tossed aside. This time, it was he who would watch carefully orchestrated rows tumble and fall, forming patterns and scenarios he had dealt and bargained and played and bled and wept to create, their fallen markings pointing him straight toward Bae.

Easy as flicking over dominoes if one were only patient and crafty enough. And now it was even more critical, more crucial, that he enact the next step of his plan. Because now it wasn’t just Bae depending on him. Now it was Belle too, her mind, her sanity, her future, _her_. And he had failed both Belle and Bae enough; he could not do so again.

Which was the problem. Fury was good and plotting even better, but he tended to lose all sense of proportion when he focused exclusively on his goal. And the last time he had blinded himself to all but Bae, he had ended up casting aside Belle. It was just that he had loved only twice in his entire long life, and he did not know how to make room for both of them at once, did not know how to juggle them when for so long he had loved only one person. But he had to find a way to make room for both of them, to place Belle in the same thought as Bae, to keep himself from losing her. He had to, or else there wouldn’t be enough left of him to pick up the pieces and continue on.

So he submerged himself in Mr. Gold, hid away Rumplestiltskin, tucked him oh so carefully behind the layers and masks of the human, mortal pawnbroker. Gold found it harder to laugh than Rumplestiltskin, but he was more patient than the imp, colder and sterner, and he had not been hurt as badly as Rumplestiltskin had been. Rumplestiltskin had lost his son and the only woman brave enough to love him, but Mr. Gold had reclaimed his love, and in some strange, incomprehensible way, that made him stronger. Besides, Gold didn’t have nearly as many memories of a young boy with trusting eyes and helpful hands, so Gold he would be.

“I’m ready,” Belle said softly, and Gold turned to greet her. She smiled at him shyly, one hand on the banister, the sunlight from the stained glass by the door falling past his dark form to cast halos at Belle’s feet.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. He almost couldn’t bring himself to step forward and take the hand she offered him, loath to disturb the vision of loveliness. But she smiled at him and clasped his hand tightly and followed him out the door without hesitation. So strange and unbelievable that someone like her loved him, needed him, and he marveled at it as they walked toward the pawnshop.

 _Or perhaps not so strange_ , he admitted grudgingly. Not when it was his curse that was twisting and warping her mind. He had thought her all but untouched by the curse, but then, he had noticed that she had been acting somewhat oddly over the past week and he had chosen to ignore it, believing it to be nothing more than her adjusting to the reactions of the townspeople now that they knew she was in a relationship with the feared Mr. Gold. If he had only paid attention, only confronted her about it…but what good would that have done? He could not drive the insanity from her mind, not on his own. He needed Regina’s desperation and Emma’s fear and Henry’s determination and True Love to do it for him.

Dominoes falling just so, balanced on a knife-edge, with Belle’s sanity and Bae’s forgiveness on the line. A poker game played against fate, with magic as his only ace. All that, and yet not a game at all, not when the outcome meant so very, very much.

It was almost physically painful to walk into his shop, with so many precious things that had once mattered to Bae scattered across the displays and through the shelves. Almost, but Gold smoothed over the creases, calming the bits of Rumplestiltskin, and did not allow himself to feel the pain.

Throughout the morning, he was careful to keep a close eye on Belle. They performed their same tasks, followed their established routines, kept to their old habits, but things seemed different now. He wondered if that was due to his reawakened zeal or his knowledge of the nightmares haunting Belle. She smiled under his gaze and brushed her hand over his often and asked him for stories behind objects she polished or rearranged, but always he was conscious of the fact that if he left her, if he stepped away from her side, the Belle he loved would be terrorized by delusions and hallucinations and fears, as if the curse were doing its best to force her into cowardice.

 _I wish I could believe the delusions were memories of our life_ , he thought, but the curse wouldn’t be so sloppy as all that. It would be careful to guide her away from anything that would lead her closer to obtaining her happy ending—which, miraculously enough, was obviously him. It would be doing its utmost to plant suspicions in the depths of her mind, goad her into doubting Gold. He wasn’t certain what form those doubts and accusations would take, but considering how much material he’d given the curse to work with, there was probably a wide and varied selection.

At lunchtime, though, Belle left him. “I told my father I’d be home late, but I doubt he thought ‘late’ meant ‘the next morning,’” she said wryly, and if he hadn’t known her so well, he would have missed the tiny slivers of worry lodged within her. “I should explain things to him, tell him that I’ll be staying with you.”

“You don’t have to go alone,” he told her, though he already knew what she would say. “I can go with you, if you’d like.”

She actually considered it before shaking her head. “No. It’ll be hard enough on him without you sitting there glowering at him. And I know you—you won’t be able to resist throwing in a quip that will make him think the worst.”

Gold gave a sharp grin. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” Belle laughed, those slivers of worry hidden, and he pretended he had removed them entirely. “I won’t be gone long. Unless…” She bit her lip, turned to leave, then resolutely turned back to him. “Unless I skip time again. And then…then I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

“I’ll look for you in an hour,” he promised her gently, brushing a knuckle over her cheek. He forced a smile. “I don’t give two-hour lunch breaks to my employees.”

Her smile was tiny but strong, and when she kissed him lingeringly on the cheek, Gold felt like he’d been given a benediction.

The hour passed interminably slowly, the minutes ticking by while he unearthed an elaborate cuckoo clock and tampered with it in such a way to make certain he’d have to call on a certain woodworker’s services to get it working again. Even before the clock stopped, he would have sworn time itself had paused. But Gold was not Rumplestiltskin and so he did not stand in a tower window and try to convince himself he did not even _want_ her to come back. No, Gold _knew_ he needed her to return, and when an hour passed and there was no sign of Belle on the street, he calmly locked the shop and drove—rather quickly, but still calmly—past Game Of Thorns, noted its darkened state, and made his way—even more quickly and perhaps less calmly—to Moe French’s house.

The door was open, as it would be if Belle were there. Aside from the pawnshop’s glass door, she still did not like to see anything closed or shut up, did not feel comfortable near locks or doorknobs.

Gold parked the car without taking the time to notice where the curb was, threw open his door and heard it close behind him, made his quick—and he was not calm, not anymore—way up the walk. His gloved hand was on the screen door handle before he heard Moe French’s voice coming from behind the house.

The backyard, where Rumplestiltskin had found this new Belle and become Mr. Gold again.

Abandoning the door, he limped to the gate and let himself through, made his way past the vine-covered deck near the door, and came to a sudden stop at the sight awaiting him.

Moe French, who had once been a king, was down on his knees, staring up at his daughter, who was wild and fierce and oblivious to the tears in her father’s eyes, to the blood trickling from the gashes she’d made in her hands, to the tangled and broken branches of the rosebush she’d apparently attacked.

“Please, Belle,” Moe French was begging her, his hands outstretched as if to tame a wild creature, or perhaps as if he were a supplicant before a powerful queen. “Please, stop, hush, it’s all right.”

Belle didn’t say anything. Her eyes were dazed and unfocused, her features twisted into an expression of tormented confusion, and still she tugged and pulled at the thorny branches caught on her sleeves. It took a moment for Gold to realize that beneath her father’s pleading, there was a slight keening sound being torn from her throat, soft and quiet and heartbreaking.

Moe French reached out, tried to put his hands over hers, tried to calm her and pull her away from the rosebush, but she let out a wordless cry and thrashed free of him. Her father let go of her quickly, falling back before her, not out of fear, but because her squirming had made lower branches scrape against her legs, threatening to bring forth more blood.

“Belle,” Gold said, and even though he almost could not get the word past all the anguish and guilt and terrible, awful _rage_ to see her reduced to this, she heard him.

She almost seemed to stop breathing. Falling completely still, she stood there, turned half away from him, caught between twisted branches with their hidden thorns and her father, watching them breathlessly, hopefully, grieved.

Gold walked forward, steadily, refusing to hesitate, until he stood only a pace away from her, staring fixedly at the line of her jaw, all he could see of her face past the fall of her hair. “Belle,” he said again.

And Belle woke up.

The branches gripped in too-tight fists fell suddenly to the ground as her hands relaxed and the tension making her body rigid disappeared so suddenly that she slumped forward, and only Gold’s arms kept her from falling to her knees. She looked about with panicked eyes, realization dawning on her, a gasp escaping her as she saw her father, not yet on his feet. And then, with a soft, dry sob, she curled forward into Gold’s chest, her cold, bleeding fingers taking handfuls of his suit coat.

“Gold,” she breathed.

Silent, he held her tighter. He had never been a strong man, but in that moment, he felt both strong enough to hold her together and so incredibly frail, so inept, so weak, not enough to heal her, only enough to remind her, for short, impermanent periods of time, of her sanity. _And is that not even more painful?_ he wondered. Bad enough to be insane; worse to wake to sanity just long enough to realize all that had been lost and would be lost again.

Moe French stood, moving slowly, as if each move pained him, and mutely led them inside. Gold kept his free arm around Belle, and she clung to him, hiding her eyes from him, keeping her face pressed against his shirt. He was heedless of the stains to his own sleeves as he took her into the small bathroom and sat her down, her blood on his hands. A washcloth, a tube of antiseptic, and some band-aids appeared at his elbow almost magically, but otherwise Moe French made himself scarce.

“What did I do?” Belle asked as he dabbed the ointment over the thin, winding scratches on her fingers, her palms, her wrists, each one as much of a flaying to his soul as what he had so long thought had been done to her.

In that moment, Gold was grateful that he had used up his reclaimed magic healing her last wounds, inflicted by glass instead of thorns but invoked by the same cursed fate; if he had still possessed even a flicker of that caged lightning, he would have unleashed it on the entire town, would have shaken the world to its foundations, would have called down any and every wrathful incantation necessary to punish anything and everything responsible for what was being done to her. And even knowing that such an act would end with nothing but a blackened, sooty stain to mark where he himself now stood, he still would have summoned that magic. For her, he would summon anything.

But he didn’t have magic, and how had he thought Mr. Gold would help him at all? His pain wasn’t less; it was just buried so much deeper, under curses and false memories and alien worlds, but Rumplestiltskin at least had had an outlet, a way of siphoning off bits of his anger and his pain. He’d inflicted it outward, danced and capered and laughed just to remind himself of life, yet Gold didn’t have even that tiny sliver of relief. Instead, it was all kept trapped inside him, buried like lava deep beneath a capped mountaintop, and now it stirred from its slumber, moved, quaked across his very soul.

“Nothing much,” he finally told Belle, holding her hand as delicately as if it were the golden flower of sunlight so coveted by the vain. “Just decided to do a bit of impromptu gardening.”

“I didn’t…I didn’t hurt Papa. Did I?”

“No one was hurt,” he replied, and vaguely wondered if it was possible for a heart to hurt so much that it would spontaneously turn into hard, sharp stone. Surely there had to be a limit to how much one person, mortal or not, could endure.

Belle bit her lip, and she suddenly looked so very vulnerable, so very fragile, and Gold _hated_ himself for bringing her to this state. If he hadn’t loved her, if he hadn’t cast her out, if he hadn’t rescued her, if he hadn’t let their story play out again, if he hadn’t brought on the curse’s anger…if, if, if, and _ifs_ never mattered any more than intent did.

He wanted to reassure her that there would be an end to this, wanted to tell her about Emma and True Love’s maternal kiss and carefully positioned dominoes. But he couldn’t. It would confuse her, would make her question _his_ sanity, and it wouldn’t matter because the savior was still so infuriatingly far from believing.

So he simply cradled her hands, kissed her on her temple, and then walked her to her room to pack a bag of her things. He was standing outside the door—she had wanted to change from her torn dress but hadn’t wanted him to go far—when Moe French found him.

“Is she…she all right?” he asked Gold, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Gold studied him for a long moment. The man before him hadn’t hurt Belle, hadn’t reviled her or tortured her or consigned her to a fate worse than death…but Gold had thought he had, had been convinced of it for decades, and old habits were hard to break.

“She is,” he finally settled for saying. “She’s packing.”

The florist just nodded. “She told me before she…before, that she’s _better_ with you, that you asked her to stay with you.”

“And so I did.” Gold wanted to leave it at that, wanted to turn his back on this man, wanted to walk away and never look back. But the look in the eyes of this florist who had once been a king, who was in both guises still a father, was the same that had been in Rumplestiltskin’s when he’d felt Bae’s fourteenth birthday approaching so very quickly and inescapably. It was the look of a father who knew he was about to lose everything.

So Gold straightened and met the man’s eyes, flinching away from that too-familiar expression. “I’ll protect her,” he promised. “She won’t be locked away again.”

Something very like relief turned Moe French into Maurice, gave him the bearing of a king, noble and commanding. “I can’t say that I’ll ever be entirely comfortable around you, Gold, but if you can help her, keep her safe, keep her happy…well, then I won’t stand in the way.”

Belle’s bedroom door opened, then, and Belle stepped out, her hand instantly moving to Gold’s sleeve, as if checking that he was really there. She looked up at her father, and the mask Moe French had been wearing, the one influenced by a life he had lived before this one, fell away to reveal, just for an instant, how worried and scared and uncertain he really was. It was gone quickly, replaced by a reassuring smile.

“Papa, I’m so sorry,” Belle began, but he didn’t let her finish, sweeping her up in an encompassing hug. He murmured something, but Gold looked away and distracted himself with thoughts of making Regina suffer and the look that would be on the puppet’s face when he called in the man who’d once been Geppetto and just what abrupt, blunt measures he could take to _force_ Emma to believe. By the time he looked back at the father and daughter, their tears had been wiped away.

Gold didn’t speak again until they had left the tiny house, until they were in the car, until they were blocks away from the home he half-feared Belle would ask to go back to any moment. “He seemed to take you leaving well,” he commented, hoping to make her look away from the rear-view mirror where she’d watched her father fade into the distance. Hoping she’d look at _him_ instead.

“He’s worried,” Belle said softly, and instead of looking at him, she looked down at her hands, clasped together in her lap with that red handkerchief between them. “He’s worried that I’ll be locked away again.”

“And you?” Gold asked quietly, soft and steady and reserved and oh so very anguished. “Are you worried?”

“Yes,” she said, the starkness of the answer tragic, the weight of her eyes as she finally met his gaze poignant. “I’m not worried about being locked away again, though—or at least, not as much as I am about…” The right corner of her mouth quirked upward, amused and sad all at once. “Well, worried that I never actually got out of my cell.”

Narrowing his eyes, Gold tried to pay attention to the road, but it was a losing battle. He stared at Belle. “What do you mean?”

She let out a laugh, more an exhalation than anything, and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Nothing. You’re here, and I don’t have to be worried, right?”

“Yes,” he murmured. And yet _he_ was worried. He was terrified. But then, what was new?

He did not take them back to the pawnshop. Everything that needed to be done there could wait; Belle was more important. He took her to his house— _our house now_ —and led her to the bedroom she had occupied so briefly before being subsumed beneath this new Belle. She unpacked quickly, then stood back and smiled at the sight of her belongings there, and only then did the nervous lump in the pit of Gold’s stomach evaporate.

Avoiding the sitting room with its painful shards entirely, Gold took her to his library. He pretended to do paperwork while she read, picking up the copy of _The Lord Of The Rings_ that she had put aside weeks ago, as if she’d never been gone. As if she were still his Belle and at any moment would look up and ask him if he remembered the day she’d gotten so caught up in a book that when he’d tried to interrupt her she’d simply grabbed hold of his hand and pulled him to sit beside her in the Dark Castle’s library.

But things _were_ different. The months they had spent at the Dark Castle seemed so long ago, something outside of the life they now lived, and so it was, a different time and different world and different people. Even Rumplestiltskin was different here, wrapped up inside Gold, and Belle was someone else entirely, a new character shredded through with inconsistencies where the real her managed to shine through the gaps.

He made dinner for her when night rent dark shadows through dusk’s glow, with the comment that he had to start repaying her for all the breakfasts and lunches she’d made for him. She sat at the kitchen table and watched him, smiling whenever he looked at her, thoughtful and somber when she thought he could not see her. He tried to pretend that she wanted to be there, that she was there solely because she loved him and not just because she was afraid of insanity in his absence; tried to pretend that she would be there every day and night forever. But even his imagination was not that good.

They ate together at the table, a cozier and closer affair than had been their meals while Gypsy or Archie or Emma ate with them, and then he washed the dishes while she dried them, doing his best to tease a smile or a laugh from her, wanting to banish the fear that hid in her eyes. _She is supposed to be the strong one_ , he thought mournfully. He did not know how to be the strong one, not without his power and his magic, didn’t know how to be the brave one. But for her, he would try.

When she began to yawn, when her smiles to his comments turned sleepy, he took her hand and helped her to her feet. “Come, dearest,” he murmured. “You need some sleep.”

“And you,” she said, following him so trustingly upstairs to her room, leaning back into the hand he kept on her spine. “You need sleep too.”

“Of course,” he agreed noncommittally. But he knew— _there will be time for sleep later, much later, after you are restored and Bae knows that I came for him_. For now, any sleep he tried to find would be marred and scarred by nightmares or dreams that made awaking its own nightmare.

When she stopped at the threshold to her room and looked up at him, her bottom lip between her teeth, shy nervousness painted over her face in becoming shades, he felt his lips quirk upward in a small smile—not that close-mouthed smile of intimidation, but rather a soft, gentle smile he used only with her, and perhaps, once upon a time, with Bae. Reassuring her, gentling her, he smoothed his hand over her cheek, surprised again by the silken feel of her skin, by the yielding way she nestled into his touch, by the spark the small gesture lit within her eyes.

“Good night, Belle,” he said, and he let his hand drop, turned to leave.

“Gold,” Belle’s hand on his arm caught him, turned him back to her, her step closer to him stilling his heart in mid-beat, reminding him that it had not turned to unresponsive stone, that it was still very much alive and wounded and still able to quiver with emotions he did not deserve. She gave him a tentative, happy smile, and then she raised herself up on her toes and pressed her lips to his in a light, lingering kiss. His right hand reflexively tightened on his cane, his other hand fluttering there in the air near her hair, caught between them. When she drew away, her smile was happier, her eyes laughing, so he dropped his own kiss on her mouth before stepping back.

“Good night,” she whispered, and even broken and altered, she still knew how to tempt a beast.

He smiled back at her, and a smile had once been so difficult to conjure, but now it came without thinking. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but the words didn’t seem enough. So he proved it—he walked away without kissing her until she _had_ to remember who she truly was and who and what he was and all that had passed between them.

She did not close the door fully, as was her habit, but he distracted himself from thinking of that by stopping just outside the door—and this door _was_ closed—that led to Bae’s room. He did not go in. He did not need a reminder of what he stood to gain, not now, but he looked at the door anyway, a mute promise he’d made a thousand times before, a vow he’d destroyed a whole world to fulfill. And then he kept walking, leaving the door and the bedroom behind, moving forward, toward his goal. _There’s always a choice—if you don’t like the one, make another._

His bedroom seemed cold and empty without even the company of the chipped cup, and yet it was more restful without the lonely taunts of a dead cup. He kept the door cracked open without analyzing the reason for it, simply leaving it ajar after he’d readied for bed. As he slipped under the covers, he was surprised at how…not happy, but not _un_ happy…he felt. The mere fact that Belle slept under the same roof as he did took him back to the months she had been his caretaker, the nights when he had left his spinning wheel or his potions or his plots to reluctantly seek sleep and found himself smiling just because the castle hummed with her slumbering life.

So even though he had thought sleep would evade him after the memories of Bae had been stirred to such vivid, painful life, he actually found that it beckoned him quickly, impatiently. And yet, before he could do more than begin to succumb to its demands, he was startled to alertness by the almost inaudible sound of footsteps coming to a halt just outside his door, a shadow at the open crack breaking the familiar contoured darkness of his room. An instant later, the door creaked farther open, revealing Belle’s silent silhouette.

“Belle?” he said softly, to let her know it was all right for her to be there.

Quietly, as if she were no more substantial than a ghost—though Gold hastily quashed that comparison—she padded forward, halting unsteadily right next to the bed. Her shadow, small and swallowed up in those same green pajamas she’d worn on her first night returned to him, fell across the bed like a premonition. He was afraid to spook her, but after a slight pause, he pulled the covers aside, silent invitation.

“It’s cold,” he offered, and with a sigh stirring her slender shoulders, Belle climbed onto the bed, her weight dipping the mattress and reassuring him of her tangible presence.

He was surprised, pleasantly, when she displayed no fear at being so close to him in the dark, instantly sliding over to lie right next to him. She circled his arm with both her hands just over his elbow, and pressed her nose against his shoulder, trembling slightly, and she seemed, in that moment, so very, very young.

He wished he could tell her it was all right, wished he could whisper all the comforting platitudes and sweet nothings into her ear that he’d once given Bae, but his belief in good things had been eroded long ago and how could he promise her it would be all right when he couldn’t even give her real, permanent peace of mind? The curse would eventually be broken, but that did nothing for tonight, for tomorrow, or the day after that, for the moments when she was not herself and could not feel the blood pouring from her wounds.

All he could give her was a temporary refuge from the ravages of the curse. His presence, and transient warmth, and her name. “Belle,” he said, affirmation, invitation, and question all at once.

She pressed her face closer against his bare arm, her breath feathery against his skin, more magical than any fairy dust had ever been. At first, he did not think she would speak, and he refused to force her to say anything she didn’t want to—not when he was finding his own words to be so slippery—but then he heard her voice, soft and chiming like her name, whisper timidly into the night.

“Do…do clocks talk?”

His throat was dry, his heart—all too soft and vulnerable—clenched, his spirit bent and brittle, so it took a moment to reply. “I’m afraid not, dearest,” he choked out. “Not usually.”

“Oh. I…I wasn’t sure.” She was curiously neutral, her tone vague, and it was so unlike her usual passion and characteristic earnestness that he couldn’t help but twist to face her, gathering her up in his arms, alarmed yet again by how small and slight she felt.

She came willingly, molding herself to him, and a small sigh slipped from her lips as she rested her head on his chest. For a moment, he could do nothing but drink in every detail of this moment. Such an intimate moment, so perfect and beautiful and undeserved that he expected it to be snatched away from him, but he was ready, fiercely, furiously, to snarl and snap and strike out at anything that would hurt her.

Hard to snarl at himself, to snap inwardly, to strike out at his own curse when it was the only thing that could bring him back to his son. But for her, he was willing to do whatever it took.

Belle nuzzled against his t-shirt, her voice drowsy. “I don’t think you’re real either.”

Ice seeped into his heart, trickled in threaded driblets down his spine. “Oh, Belle,” he murmured brokenly.

“It’s all right.” And unbelievably, _she_ was trying to soothe _him_. “The cell isn’t that bad when I can make it look like this.”

And this was not like dominoes, not when the marks that differentiated her from any other were so precious, so beautiful, not when she was already toppling over, threatening to take him with her when she went. He did not know how to prove to her that he was not delusion made reality in her mind to break the barrenness of her surroundings—that it was far more likely that she, too good to be true, was the delusion. _Besides, why make her face reality when it will not be reality for much longer_?

But he was selfish and lonely and jealous of those things that were his, so he tried anyway, tried to reach that part of her he had first fallen in love with, buried beneath echoes and shadows and delusions.

“Nonsense,” he said in a pale imitation of Rumplestiltskin’s teasing manner, diluted by worlds and griefs and names. “If you were concocting this from your mind, I’d be a handsome, brave Prince Charming, don’t you think?”

She giggled and pressed closer, her hair tickling his chin. “No, you’d be exactly as you are. You’re here with me now—isn’t that proof enough that you’re exactly what I want?”

He had no words, then, not for this. This hadn’t been in any of his plans, hadn’t factored into any of the patterns of malleable tiles, hadn’t occurred to him. Belle had always been the one thing that surprised him and took him aback and unbalanced him, the young princess succeeding in checking him when no one else could. He had never thought he’d fall in love with the caretaker he bargained for, and even after he had, he’d been certain she could never love him. He had known she was dead and that there was no possibility of her ever entering his life again, and he had known she wouldn’t remember him. Every preconception he held of her had been turned over on its head until now he was left in a perpetual state of dazed adoration. But this… _this_ wasn’t a joyous return or an unbelievable love. This was a hurt he couldn’t heal, a horror he couldn’t soothe, an enemy he couldn’t combat.

But it was Belle, and so he would find a way to fix it. He would tweak his dominoes and set up extra ones and alter the timing of flicking them over. He would let Regina live long enough to play her part and he would be patient with Emma and he would face the puppet-man, _anything_ to hold True Love in his hands again—with all her memories intact—to feel the curse beaten back—forced to retreat and give up its twisting, manipulative hold of her mind—to recover the magic that would ensure no one could ever hurt her again.

Resolve, cold and hard and utterly familiar—so much easier than bravery—settled once more into his bones, strengthening his mind, straightening his body, strangling his fears. Rumplestiltskin—and Mr. Gold, because really they were one and the same, different guises of the same man—curled himself around Belle, driving away madness, pressed his lips to her hair, drawing in light, and closed his eyes, savoring this moment that meant everything, this moment he would do anything to keep and reclaim and make a normal part of his life.

Tomorrow, he would be the deal-maker. Tomorrow, he would play his games with their high stakes. Tomorrow, he would find a way to hurry along the end of the curse. But tonight he held her. Tonight he murmured soft words in her ear to make her smile. Tonight he relaxed and drifted away into sleep, his lullaby not the taunts and tears of a teacup but the rhythmic breathing of the woman he loved.

There would be time enough for everything, he would make sure of it. For Bae’s sake, yes, always. But also for Belle’s. Always, now, for her sake, too.

And maybe, just maybe, for his, too.

\---


	14. Out Of Time

\---

Wood wasn’t something most people gave a lot of thought to, and yet lately it was all August could think about. Or, well, almost all. He had to admit that since his disastrous midnight meeting with the man who had once been the Dark One, he had also been having a hard time getting Rumplestiltskin out of his head. And little wonder since it was looking more and more likely that one or the other of those two things would kill him. Frankly, he was surprised Rumplestiltskin hadn’t finished him off when he’d held his cursed knife at his throat.

_Not that I’m not grateful_ , he thought wryly. If there was one thing August knew, it was that living things tended to fight for life. Even wood, before it was cut down and chopped into desired pieces and fashioned into something else, wanted to survive, straining for sunlight, fighting other plants for precious water, working toward growth. It was after it was cut, after you’d been taken and beaten down and manipulated, that life began to look a bit less desirable than before. And yet, for August, it had become even _more_ desirable, more coveted, more precious than he’d ever realized it was. Something about feeling himself slowly turning into an inanimate object made him savor each breath, each sip of coffee, each drop of rain, each moment that he could still move and think and breathe and _feel_.

He couldn’t help but grimace as he shifted his leg beneath the table, tightening his hand around the half-empty coffee cup on the table in front of him. The middle of Granny’s Diner wasn’t the best place to let his fear show, but he still had to stifle the desire to check and make sure that his leg was still flesh. It had been getting worse with every passing day, as if his arrival in Storybrooke had accelerated the process.

_And why not_? he found himself thinking, straining to hold onto his carefree persona in front of the other patrons at nearby tables. _Being here has certainly pounded in just how vastly I’ve failed_.

How many times over the years had he thought back on the world that had given him life when it should have—by the laws of _this_ world—been impossible? How many times had he thought about telling someone else about that world only to always hold back because he didn’t want to get thrown into therapy? How many times had _he_ wondered if he was crazy? More than he wanted to think about, really, because it was easy, in what was called the ‘real world,’ to _know_ that fairytales were just fiction and that any young boy who claimed to be a puppet given a pumping heart and veins filled with blood instead of sap was really just deluded.

_Guess that makes me deluded_ , he thought with a cynical smirk, and took a sip of his coffee to hide the expression. _Or maybe it’s thinking that I can convince Emma Swan of the truth that even_ I _sometimes have a hard time believing that makes me delusional_.

“More coffee?”

August glanced up and managed a smile for the beautiful waitress he remembered as an intense, red-hooded woman at the council his father had taken him to. He’d hid under the table, then, distracted himself with carvings of wood that made so much more sense than the plans and schemes swirling above his head. Now, he couldn’t hide under the table; now, it was up to him to save the life of the werewolf-turned-waitress, along with the lives of everyone else in the entire town.

“No, I think I’ve had enough,” he replied at Ruby’s arched brow, and was glad she couldn’t hear the double-meaning in the statement.

_Truthful_.

Hard to be truthful when he walked such a fine line between insanity and hidden reality, even harder when it was physically painful to walk through town or even just sit here without moving and be able to see so much around him that took him back to a childhood he had been half-convinced, over the past three decades, was nothing more than the result of a mixed-up, obviously traumatic past. He was beyond grateful that he hadn’t yet caught a glimpse of his father—not until he was able to convince Emma that Storybrooke was actually a pocket of another world. Maybe then he’d be able to look in Geppetto’s eyes without shrinking away in abject shame.

“Hey…you okay?” Ruby asked, and August was warmed by the obvious concern in her voice.

“Just having a bit of cabin-fever, I think,” he said, once more having to straighten under the burden that had come crashing back down on him so suddenly not quite a year ago. Once more firming up his façade and strengthening his resolve.

“Oh, right.” Ruby smiled at him, much more relaxed now than she had been before her altercation with her grandmother a few weeks before. “You’re used to moving around a lot.”

“You can say that again,” August said dryly, and wondered, yet again, how it would feel to not be able to move at all, to be locked in place, fixed into one shape and position. A block of wood, carved into the shape of a man, at first immobile and then, eventually, as his curse progressed, completely lifeless. Every night since Emma had come to Storybrooke, he’d woken up, sweating and gasping, from nightmares of being trapped as a puppet again, unable to move, unable to breathe, staring out at a world he could no longer interact with. A living death.

Shaking his head to rid himself of the constant fear clamoring at the back of his mind, August smiled up at Ruby. “I’m good now, I think, thanks.”

She smiled back and left him to his bleak thoughts. August sipped at his coffee, hoping that the bitter drink would keep him from slipping back into the morbid wonderings that had prompted him to try the complex, dangerous, and ultimately futile scheme of tricking and then controlling the Dark One. As much as he had forgotten about the world he had lived in so briefly, he hadn’t forgotten the shiver of fear that had run down anyone’s spine whenever they mentioned the infamous Trickster, the Spinner, the Deal-Maker, Rumplestiltskin.

A cold trickle of sweat prickled at the back of his neck, but August ignored it. If Rumplestiltskin had wanted to kill him, he would have done it already. And so long as he still had a chance of convincing Emma of her prophesied task, he was valuable to the Dark One. Or so he kept telling himself; it didn’t help to comfort him, though, whenever he saw movement out of the corner of his eye or had to pass a dark alley.

August looked away from the dregs of coffee and his eyes fell on the young couple sitting in a corner table, a baby in a carrier placed on the booth beside the mother. It had taken him a while to place them, a few days to remember who they really were, but then, he had only seen Princess Ella once, and he had never seen Prince Thomas at all. Geppetto had sent him out of the room when Jiminy had brought the news of Thomas’s mysterious disappearance, but August had listened in at the door, afraid that their conversation would be about him and whether or not he had been meeting the Blue Fairy’s requirements.

The curse had really done a number on everyone here, August knew, so it was nice to see Ella and Thomas smiling at each other, laughing over some face their daughter made. _Emma’s already helping things just by being here_ , he thought for the thousandth time. _How much more would be accomplished if she_ believed _?_

It was a question he’d asked himself too many times, and even now impatience was bubbling up inside him. Another thing he tried to ignore, tried to smooth over, tried to rid himself of. The last thing he could afford to give into in Emma Swan’s case was impatience or frustration. Better to keep to his script, play his part, intrigue her without scaring her, offer a tantalizing mystery she couldn’t solve and have her come after him. He might have abandoned her and missed her formative years, but he knew himself well enough, knew the results of a hard life well enough, to know that he had to tread very carefully through here.

Which meant he had no idea at all what his next step should be.

Letting out a heavy sigh, August stood and threw a few bills down on the table. As he headed toward the door, he made sure to send a wink Granny’s way. She had always had a sweet in her pocket ready to be slipped to the young boy who’d just discovered the allure of taste, and he was still grateful for that kindness.

The air outside was chilly, with just a hint of sunshine beneath the cold tang. Another thing August wouldn’t be able to feel if he kept turning into wood. Another thing he couldn’t help but be afraid to lose—particularly as he felt his leg stiffen and harden beneath him, sharp pangs of acidic pain shooting up his thigh where flesh and nerve endings still existed.

August inhaled sharply and staggered, his balance thrown off. He felt himself growing dizzy, his mind fighting the reality of wood where once had been flesh, and he quickly leaned against the tree growing up from a ringed circle in the diner courtyard. Luckily, no one was sitting at the outside tables, and he could only hope everyone inside the diner was too distracted to notice his stumble and almost-fall. But that was a distant thought, submerged beneath the pain and shock and swelling terror.

The pain moved up his failing body, retreating before the advancing wood, and August’s hands tightened painfully around the tree trunk he was leaning against. With all his strength, he resisted the urge to grab hold of his leg, to try to force it to turn back into flesh by pressing his palms and the pulse running beneath the skin to its smooth length, to crumple in despair and fear like he had when Rumplestiltskin had let him go.

_It will pass,_ he told himself, gritting his teeth against the pain. _It will pass_. _It will pass_.

And it did.

But one day, it wouldn’t. One day it would just keep spreading, keep moving upward until all that was left was wood. And in this cursed world, in this land without magic, he would be even more lifeless than the tree currently propping him up. At least the tree still had roots, still drank in nourishing sunshine and life-giving water, still grew. But he? He would just be a block of wood, already cut down, already carved and fixed in place, hollow and dead inside.

Maybe it was what he deserved for letting his father—and the whole Enchanted Forest—down, but he couldn’t just give up. He had to try. Not only for himself, but also for Cinderella and her prince and their baby and the happiness they had found as a family. For Red and her grandmother and the kindness they had shown him, both here and in the last world. For Snow and James and the life together they’d never had a chance to lead. For Henry and the earnest optimism and noble determination he’d demonstrated, not to mention the friendship he’d so freely offered August. For Jiminy Cricket and the life he had chosen and wished for but was now denied.

But most of all, for Geppetto. For the pride August wanted so desperately to see in his eyes when he finally came face to face with him. For the happiness he’d see and feel at their reunion and the hug he’d been longing for since even before he’d clambered into the enchanted wardrobe. For the second chance he’d get with the father who’d loved him enough to face down Monstro and wish for impossible things and bargain with the fate of the world.

Without bothering to look back and see whether anyone had noticed his discomfiture, August shoved himself off the tree and started walking quickly. He knew that he couldn’t outrun what was happening to him, knew that he’d used up his grace period already, knew that all that was left to him was to convince Emma or harden into wood. And yet, despite knowing those things, he couldn’t help but walk faster and faster, hoping against hope that some answer, some escape, some solution would present itself as he strode the darkening streets of Storybrooke, a world unto itself.

The light-posts created tiny pockets of honey illumination, softening the sharp edges of the falling night. Hands in his pockets, August watched his feet as he strode past shadowed sidewalk and into the dimly lit pockets before once more delving into the shadows. It was easy to forget, while watching his unfaltering steps, just what world he walked through and who he passed, easy to imagine that he was back in any of the dozens of cities he’d lived in, anonymous and easily forgotten, seen as normal and familiar. And yet, the instant he looked up, looked past the contrast of inky darkness and carnelian light, he was always struck by the discordance of the seemingly familiar town filled to the brim with remnants of a past life.

Proof of how far he had strayed, how much he had forgotten, just what he had left behind.

And now they were all in danger of fading away with their curse unbroken. In danger of being left permanently unhappy, sinking ever deeper into the evil Queen’s clutches. And all because he hadn’t been strong enough to stay with a tiny baby. All because he had let fear take over and walked away from it all. No matter how many times he told himself he’d been too young, too out of his depth, too powerless, it didn’t erase the fact that Storybrooke, all that remained of the Enchanted Forest, had depended on him, even if only unknowingly, and he had let them all down. _If they knew, would they still smile at me when they pass me on the street_? he wondered.

He couldn’t imagine that they would. Couldn’t imagine that his father, with or without his memories, would ever look at him with the pride he’d promised him.

August was pulled from his downward spiraling thoughts when he caught sight of a woman he couldn’t possibly mistake—not because of his long ago past but because she was the talk of the entire town—standing half a block down from him. She was staring upward with vividly blue eyes, dark hair spilling down her back, her arms crossed over her chest as if she were unhappy with whatever she was glaring at.

For an instant, August considered turning down a side street and avoiding her entirely. It would probably be easier and definitely safer. It was a miracle Rumplestiltskin had left him alive after the desperate trick he had pulled on him; August was reasonably certain that if he approached—or worse, upset—the one person the Dark One actually seemed to care for, he wouldn’t be granted a second miracle.

And yet…Belle looked almost lost, a bit confused, as she gazed up at the light-post, and there was no one else on the street to help her.

“Hey,” August ventured as he neared her. He tucked his hands carefully into his pockets and kept several feet between them. All the whispers he’d heard of the woman who was—according to some of the more scandalous gossip—now living with Mr. Gold claimed she was sweet and kind, but it wasn’t _her_ wrath August feared. He glanced around, trying to make the move casual, wary of Rumplestiltskin appearing out of nowhere. He might have invited the Dark One to follow him around the last couple of days, but it had still been unnerving just how many times Rumplestiltskin had shown up in his proximity.

Belle didn’t seem to notice him, so August took a tentative step closer. “Are…are you all right?”

She started and turned to him as if just becoming aware of his presence, but she was smiling almost as soon as she faced him. “I’m sorry. I’m…I’m supposed to be somewhere. I think.” She frowned slightly and darted a sideways glance around her. “Or maybe this is where I’m supposed to be.”

“I…see.” August was no stranger to confusion. For crying out loud, he had practically held a reserve on it in his first months after being transported to this world, and again when driving into Storybrooke and being assailed by familiarity he hadn’t expected. Still, there was something…odd, almost unnatural…about Belle’s confusion. “Are—” he began, but he was interrupted by Belle snatching hold of his jacket and yanking him toward the closest building.

“Watch out!” she cried, and huddled with him next to the wall.

Uneasiness slithered through the pit of August’s stomach, a prickling along his arms. He studied Belle carefully, noting that her eyes never rested on him for very long. Rumors couldn’t always be trusted, but it was accepted knowledge that Belle had been released from an insane asylum; the official story was that some envious nurse had locked her away unfairly—though there had also been very quiet whispers about Gold’s anger having something to do with it as well—but the detached, unfocused look in Belle’s eyes told a different story.

“What am I watching out for?” he asked cautiously when the tension eased out of Belle’s body.

“The light-posts,” she explained matter-of-factly, looking up at him, her expression open and curious. “Sometimes they switch places so they won’t get so bored—and they don’t always look where they’re stepping.”

“Huh.” August was a writer; words were his specialty. But there just didn’t seem to be an appropriate response to that. _Is this what Emma feels like talking to Henry_? The sudden insight perturbed August, because it made it seem even more impossible to convince her that the ‘fairytales’ were true. “Well,” he added when Belle watched him expectantly, “that’s a little…disturbing. Does Mr. Gold know you’re out here?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back. Belle’s friendly expression morphed instantly into a sort of mild sadness, and she looked away from him, clasping her hands in front of her. “I didn’t even give him a real name.”

August frowned. “What? Who?”

“Well…” Belle was small and slender, beautiful and open, and her eyes seemed to gather the light and shine forth like crystals in the night. And yet, for all that, there was something…off, something ever so slightly wrong about her. As if Rumplestiltskin had set his mark on her already. Only… _only Rumplestiltskin himself didn’t feel dark or twisted, and I was_ hugging _him._

So what was wrong with Belle?

August had never spent any time with someone who was crazy; was it possible to feel their insanity broiling about them? He wasn’t sure, didn’t know whether this was natural or not, couldn’t decide if he should leave her as quickly as possible or try to take her back to Mr. Gold. The only thing he _was_ sure of was that he couldn’t exactly afford to anger Rumplestiltskin any further. And yet, still, despite his uneasiness, despite his fear, moved by the lost air about her, he reached out and nudged gently on Belle’s elbow to get her walking, guiding her toward the pawnshop at the end of the main street.

“Well,” Belle said again, willingly falling into step beside him, and leaning forward as if telling August a secret, “I’m still in my cell, you know.” He didn’t have time to do more than raise his eyebrows in surprise before she continued. “I just made all this up”—she waved a hand to encompass the whole of the town—“so my cell didn’t seem so small. And since it’s just an illusion, it makes sense that _things_ move and talk just like people. Right?”

Before he could consider the wisdom of it, August found himself nodding and venturing a small smile at the young woman beside him. “Right. Reality is definitely what we make of it.”

It had nothing to do with the fact that he was scared to death of becoming a _thing_ himself. Nothing at all to do with his fear that no one would ever speak to him or look at him as if he were a person should he turn fully back into wood. Nothing at all.

_Still a liar_ , he told himself harshly, and hated himself.

Belle’s smile was brilliant and innocent, like sunlight warming wood, almost managing to distract him from the constant despair nibbling away at the edges of his own sanity, spilling light over into the shadows elongated before their steady steps. “Yes. And Gold—I made him up, to make this world complete. He’s the best part of the whole illusion.”

“Really?” August gave her a sidelong glance, bemused and curious and inexplicably intrigued. He’d asked Henry if he knew who the pawnbroker was—and had been relieved when the kid had said he didn’t; no need to endanger the young boy by entangling him with the Dark One any more than he already had—but he hadn’t thought to ask who Belle was. There was the apparent answer, naturally, and looking down at the woman walking at his side, August couldn’t find a reason to disbelieve that he was currently talking to the inspiration for the beauty from one of the most popular fairytales of this world.

“I know you don’t believe me,” Belle said softly, her gaze falling to her feet. “But that’s because he’s mine. My secret, just for me. No one else can see him the way I can, can see past the mysteries. He’s hidden in layers that nobody else can penetrate. You may not believe me, but it’s true.”

Taking a deep breath, trying not to delve too deeply into the still-raw memories of his encounter with Rumplestiltskin, August nonetheless remembered the stark vulnerability, the repentant selflessness, the uncharacteristic openness the Dark One had displayed when he’d still thought August was his lost son, and he thought that maybe he had seen a bit of those mysteries himself, seen past the façade of deal-maker and trickster to who was there, hiding beneath the more powerful exterior, just as real and true as the fearsome imp on the outside.

“I do believe you,” he said slowly, staring straight ahead at the city shrouded in darkness and curses. When he glanced to Belle and saw her peering up at him curiously, he added, “I’m a writer—I believe that all characters have hidden qualities. Sometimes you might have to apply a lot of pressure to bring those qualities out. And other times you just have to be patient and wait for it.”

Belle’s eyes were suddenly piercing, shrewd, more insightful than seemed possible compared to the broken madness she’d exhibited just moments earlier. “You’re him, aren’t you?”

Guilt stabbed him deeply, yet another pinprick added to the multitude already assailing him, cutting deeper with every trusting remark by Henry or glimpse of Jiminy Cricket or thought of his father. “Him?” he repeated, scarcely able to push the word past the tightness of his throat.

“The one he thought was his son.”

August wanted to deny it, but no matter what people would think when they heard his real name, he did hate lying. He’d learned his lesson when he’d felt himself marked out for each deception, been taught a better way when the long nose and wood had simultaneously been banished, allowing him to be a real boy—a real _person_. Even after coming to this world, after hearing his father tell him that lies were all right so long as they protected someone, he’d hated having to lie, had been terrified that even in this alien world, the Blue Fairy would appear out of thin air to chastise him for his lies about highways and names and babies.

Later, as he grew, lies had multiplied, necessary to hide that he was a runaway or a thief, to conceal the fact that he had no parents, to protect the other orphans he’d run away with. Even with his friends, he’d been forced to lie, unable to tell them that he had no idea what a car was or how to use a bus or that there were subways beneath the road or how to dial a phone. Unable to tell them just how afraid he was every time a light flicked on with no effort, water sprang from faucets with no more than the twist of a lever, or voices spoke from small devices. A world without magic, his father had told him, but every moment here had shown him another magic made common and ordinary in this foreign world.

And yet, as he’d grown, August had learned that he didn’t have to lie, not fully. All he had to do was tack the word _fiction_ in front of all his truths that sounded like lies, and suddenly it was all right. All right to spin fairytales, all right to say they were real, all right to say he dreamed of a world where fairies were viable options, imps were accepted fears, and ogres were a natural danger. All right to tell them of his world. And so he’d learned to tell the truth under the excuse of _fiction_ and to lie under the mask of _reality_.

But Belle’s eyes were steady on him, and there was something so knowing, so understanding, so acutely _aware_ about her, that he couldn’t lie, not about this. Not to her.

“That…was a mistake,” he said, tacit admission and clumsy apology all in one. And now, knowing that she _knew_ , that Gold had somehow woken her up, August wanted to say more, wanted to spill out all his reasons and excuses and justifications, wanted to make her understand if only so that _he_ could too, read it in the reflection of her eyes. But the words wouldn’t come, and so he was silent.

“He’s the type of character you just have to be patient with,” she told him, mild rebuke evident in her tone. “You don’t have to put any more pressure on him—I think he already has enough, actually.”

“I’m sorry.” And August actually meant it. He’d been growing desperate, had been sinking deeper in his cloying fear, had felt time running out, and after visiting the Blue Fairy, after finding out that she didn’t retain her memories and couldn’t help him, he hadn’t been able to see any other option open to him. He was failing miserably at making Emma believe, and controlling the Dark One had seemed the only other way to break the curse.

And yet…hearing Rumplestiltskin’s heartfelt apology, seeing the tears he’d never show to anyone else, and then…taking the knife the Dark One had freely and voluntarily offered him…well, August had known it was a mistake, but by then he’d been in too deep.

The story of his life, really. Always in over his head, out of his depth, trapped by both circumstances and his own decisions.

“Things aren’t _good_ here,” he blurted, sincerely, earnestly. There was no reason, really, to explain himself to Belle, to look at her and wordlessly beg for understanding, but he had no one else to talk to—Emma wouldn’t listen, Rumplestiltskin wouldn’t forgive, Geppetto wouldn’t remember, and Henry didn’t need the extra pressure—and Belle was listening intently, compassionately, so the words came spilling out of him. And she nodded, reassuring him that she, too, knew about the curse. “I thought he could help me.”

“He has a plan,” Belle said confidently, reaching out a careful hand to brush lightly against his jacket sleeve.

“Yes.” August let out a dry chuckle and looked away. He swallowed and swore he could feel the sharp edge of that cursed, branded knife against his neck. “Emma.”

For the first time, Belle betrayed a hint of uncertainty, a slight frown shifting her delicate features.

“Unfortunately,” August clarified, “she refuses to believe that this is real.”

“Oh.” Belle bit her lip, looking down at their feet as they walked slowly forward, her right hand slipping into the pocket of her vivid blue coat. Finally, just as August was about to say something else to break the awkward silence, she looked up and caught his eyes. “You know, I couldn’t handle my cell anymore, and that’s why I created this world. Maybe Emma couldn’t handle the world, so she created a tiny cell for herself. I have a key, something that makes sure I don’t lose this world. Maybe Emma has a key for her cell too.”

“A key?” August raised his eyebrows, considering, feeling a touch of excitement at this possibility. “What’s yours?”

“Gold.” The name was so wistful, so admiring, that it took an extra instant to remember it was a name, not just an element. Belle’s lips curved upward in a private smile. “When he’s with me, things are more…they’re better. But if he’s not there, if he disappeared…all I’d have left would be the cell. If Emma’s the same way, if she needs to believe that this isn’t real, maybe you just have to find her key and take it away.”

_Henry_. August didn’t have to take even a full second to know that was Emma’s key. The boy was the only reason she was here in town, the reason she refused to believe in what had been shown and told her repeatedly. So long as she had her son to focus on to the exclusion of all else, she could ignore what the town was trying to tell her.

“I’m impressed,” August said, already wondering how he could—not take away Henry, but threaten it. Make Emma believe there was a chance she could lose the bright boy so that she would have to come to him for help. “So…” He drew the word out, met Belle’s gaze with a questioning look and tiny smile. “Do you think Mr. Gold would help me?”

Belle flashed a grin, mischievous and impish, so much so that August actually laughed aloud. “Yes. In his own way. Like all secrets, he’s very…secretive.”

“Well, I’ll have to be persistent then,” August teased as the lit sign to Mr. Gold’s pawnshop came into view.

“Patient,” Belle corrected him automatically. “Be patient with him. It’s worth it, I promise.”

“Okay,” August agreed, his laughter fading into a smile. It had been a while since he’d felt so hopeful, so excited, and his smile felt more real than it had in weeks. “I’ll take your word for it.”

He might as well have offered her the world from her reaction, as if she’d never been given trust before. But then, coming out of an insane asylum, it probably had been in short supply. “What’s your name?” she asked, almost shyly.

“August,” he replied, and that wasn’t even a lie anymore, didn’t even feel like one. It had been decades since he’d been Pinocchio, years since he’d been anything other than August Booth. He was slowly growing used to _knowing_ , once again, that the world he’d come from was more than just a byproduct of his imagination and loneliness, and he still wanted more than anything to see his father again, but none of that could change the fact that he was truly and completely August W. Booth.

But Belle chuckled and grimaced, shaking her head as if to hide her smirk. “Oh.”

“What?” August asked with a slow grin. Somehow, in a way he couldn’t explain, he was feeling…almost comfortable. His ever-present fear faded into the background, his guilt subsumed beneath new hope. There was something magical about the open brilliance Belle radiated.

Belle bit her lip, then laughed again. “I named you after a _month_?” Her smile disappeared too quickly, a crease appearing in her brow. “Is…is that what month it is now?”

Kindness, startling and molten, surged inside August, and his smile turned gentle. “No,” he said calmly. “It’s April.”

“Oh. It’s spring.” She paused, as if to process that revelation, before smiling up at him again. “Well, I hope you like the month of August.”

“I do,” he stated firmly. “In fact, I firmly believe it is one of my top twelve favorite months.”

Her giggle was startling because it was so different from the unnatural wrongness he’d felt about her earlier, beautiful in its simplicity and fearlessness—and a bit nerve-wracking considering that they were almost in front of the pawnshop now.

“So,” August said as he nudged Belle’s elbow again, guiding her toward the back door of the pawnshop. The front door had the _Closed_ sign over it and the front lights were off, leaving the entire shop cloaked in darkness, but Mr. Gold’s car in the back indicated that he was still inside. “Do you think you could do me a favor and _not_ smile or laugh at me in front of Mr. Gold?”

“Why not?” Belle stared back at him, genuinely perplexed, and August had to bite back his own smile.

“Well, I already made him mad once, and he seems like the jealous type to me.” He wondered if it made him a coward that he was considering dropping Belle off at the back doorstep and—not running—but walking away rather quickly. _A coward—or maybe a wise man._

“Oh.” Belle smiled yet again, her eyes sparkling, and August thought he knew why someone routinely called the Dark One would be drawn to her. There was so much light in her, spilling out of her onto everyone she met, making even August’s bleak future look a bit sunnier; he could imagine how startling and unique and wondrous that would appear to Rumplestiltskin, a stunted plant opening to the rays of sunlight that made it past all the obstacles crowding between to shine upon starved leaves and wilted blossoms.

Belle slowed her steps even as she looked to the door leading into the pawnshop. “There’s no need to worry. He may be my secret, but I’m his, too. He doesn’t have any reason to be jealous.”

“Oh, I know,” August assured her. “But if I had to guess, I’d say Gold’s the possessive type, and I don’t want to have to make a trip to the hospital tonight. Or, worse, not even make it to the hospital.”

Belle’s eyes narrowed as she stared up at him, reassessing, evaluating. August felt suddenly very exposed, as if his clothing and flesh had been stripped away to reveal the wood underneath. “You’re scared of him,” she exclaimed, as if it were a revelation.

August let out a humorless laugh, little more than an exhalation. “Yeah, well, it’s hard not to be scared of a person after they hold a knife to your throat.”

“He did that?” Belle’s question was more thoughtful than accusatory. “Used a knife?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, abruptly sure he shouldn’t have said anything about his midnight confrontation with the man she so obviously loved.

“It’s because you pretended to be his son,” Belle said before he could think of a way to extricate himself from the situation. She met his gaze, her own solid and unwavering. All hints of the insanity he had glimpsed earlier were gone, evaporated as if they had never been, and all that was left was a woman who held no fear at all of the dreaded Dark One. “All dragons have chinks in their armor, but those chinks are supposed to be hidden. You…found his.”

“Yeah,” August repeated. He’d expected death, almost even longed for it—whatever death Rumplestiltskin meted out would have at least been over more quickly than slowly calcifying into wood—terrified that he’d receive it and shocked when Rumplestiltskin had let him live. And yet, as much as he was still processing all of that, there were still the other surprises in the night that he had been trying to avoid thinking about. Surprises like finding out that Rumplestiltskin wasn’t as hard and unyielding and heartless as everyone thought he was. That he was willing to give up magic to reclaim his son. That he _wanted_ the curse broken.

Yes, August had found one chink in the powerful imp’s armor, and looking at Belle, August thought he knew another. Only, this time, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and take advantage of it. He was no knight in shining armor, no hero looking for a grand quest; he was just a puppet that had been turned into flesh and given a task he couldn’t fulfill and a life he couldn’t live up to. And this? This was one dragon he would gladly let lie.

“And nobody else is going to know about it.” In no more than the blink of an eye, Belle was standing in front of him, tall and fierce and defiant, blocking his path to her pawnbroker and imp. Her transparent eyes had turned steely and determined, her chin set at a resolute cant, and no matter that August towered over her, he knew that he was the one in danger at this moment.

_More reasons than one that the Dark One would be drawn to her, enough to ask for her as his price_ , he suddenly knew.

“You can’t tell anyone about his son or the knife or anything that happened. Never speak a word of it.” There was no give in her voice, none of the compassion she had displayed earlier, only unshakable ferocity, hidden protectiveness that now showed itself like dangerous fire gleaming out of a shuttered lantern.

“Belle,” he began, uneasy and unsure and once more three steps behind. Plots and schemes, all to protect loved ones, all swirling about over his head, and sometimes August wondered if he would ever grow up, or if he had been permanently trapped in the same situation and age as he’d been carved.

“No,” she snapped, her hand flicking outward between them, halting an inch away from his chest, barring his way. “He’s a secret, and secrets have to be mysterious or they lose their power and disappear. They can’t be exposed in front of everybody. They have to be protected.” She hesitated, the slightest trace of uncertainty softening the steel in her eyes. “He’s my secret, August. You can’t tell anyone about him.”

And no matter that one day Emma Swan might need a way to control or fight off the Dark One, no matter that one day the Prince and his wife might need information to hold over the deal-maker, no matter that he himself might not survive without the imp to help him, August found himself nodding. “All right. I promise. I won’t tell anyone.”

It seemed a foolish decision, ridiculous, absurd, idiotic even, to give away the only advantage he held against an adversary even more powerful than Regina. And yet, August wouldn’t have changed the decision. Wouldn’t have made a different choice. Some happy endings were hard enough to reach without adding in more obstacles, and he didn’t want one of his last acts to be destroying the happiness, the peace, the joy in this young woman’s eyes. So he promised, and he felt a burden slide off his shoulders.

Belle studied him a moment, then nodded. Her smile was unexpected, but not as much as the gentle hand she rested on his forearm for a moment. “Good. Thank you.”

Despite himself, August blinked. “That’s it? You believe me? Just like that?”

“I’ll take your word for it,” she told him, repeating his earlier words back to him. “Why? Shouldn’t I?”

He looked away; it was too painful to meet her eyes right then. “It’s just…I haven’t always been trustworthy. Most people wouldn’t take my word for anything.”

She frowned slightly. “Have you lied to me?”

And it was sad, really, that he had to pause and run through their conversation in his head, just to make sure that he hadn’t. “No,” he finally said with assurance. “I haven’t.”

“Then I’ll trust you.” She seemed much older, at that moment, than he thought she probably was, making him feel young and foolish. “Sometimes a character just needs a bit of stress to make hidden qualities come out, right?”

“Right,” he said, choked and trying to hide it. _When’s the last time someone trusted me?_ He couldn’t remember. Even Henry had regarded him with suspicion at first. Emma didn’t believe him unless she had at least two correlating eye-witness accounts. Rumplestiltskin had very good reason to never trust him again. Even the people native to this world considered him unreliable, a traveling writer who never stayed put and liked to embellish his stories to make them more interesting, to make them earn the title of _fiction_. And yet, here, without more than a few moment’s walk to give her insight to his character, Belle—a princess who’d been through more than anyone deserved, who’d been imprisoned over and over again in her short life, locked away for more years than she’d been alive—Belle gave him her trust.

August hadn’t been lying when he’d made his promise. He’d meant it. But he meant it even more now.

“Thank you,” he told her, and knew it couldn’t possibly be enough for what she’d given him. And yet it was all he had to give her. Words. His profession, his chosen weapon, his disguise—all he had and yet never enough.

But Belle gifted him a small smile, as if she thought it more than enough, and turned to the door. She paused, then, at the sight of the doorknob, a shudder passing through her frame, visible despite her enwrapping coat. Something broken and fragile moved through her, destroying her confidence and boldness and fierceness, leaving shattered shards in their place. August hated the transformation, and moving slowly, he reached past her and opened the door for her. Belle flinched slightly, but she straightened her shoulders almost immediately and stepped inside. When she turned back, there was only a trace of fear tightening the lines of her face to give away her vulnerability.

“Aren’t you coming inside?” she asked him.

“No, I’d better not.” He gave her a wry smile. “Like I said, I value my life. But it was nice to meet you, Belle.”

“And you, August.” She giggled again at his name, so many faces, so many emotions, all shifting and changing so quickly, like clouds dancing across the surface of the sun and casting dappled shadows over trees that couldn’t catch their many transient states.

She had turned toward the front of the shop and August was just beginning to close the door between them when he heard the crash of something violent and abrupt and, from the sound of it, damaging coming from the main area of the shop. Before he could think better of it— _and isn’t that where so many of my troubles start?_ —August had darted inside, slipping between Belle and whatever was happening in the front of the pawnshop. He spared an instant to remember the last time he’d snuck in through the back, to remember the chill that had passed through him like an early cold front, numbing and debilitating, at the sight of Mr. Gold’s intimidating stare. At the moment, though, he had more pressing concerns, like the fact that there were two different voices coming from the front and only one of them was the imp-turned-pawnbroker.

“Careful,” August breathed when Belle tried to move past him. He almost reached out to catch her arm but decided against it; he didn’t want to reawaken that breathless terror inside her. “That sounds like the mayor.”

The mayor’s alto voice was loud and confrontational, raised in anger, the words indistinguishable, and August had to fight back a wave of almost primal fear. Old nightmares of black carriages and masked guards and a Queen pointing a dangerous finger at wedding crowds flashed through his mind.

In contrast, Gold’s tenor voice was quiet, smooth, controlled down to the most minute of vibrations, and yet for all that, it sliced through the distance between the front and the backroom as if magicked. Again, though, August had to fight back a resurgence of fear, but this terror was new and fresh, raw and urgent, summoning up memories of rainy woods and a cold blade and dark eyes measuring his usefulness alive against his value dead.

“Now, now, Regina, you really should take care with your temper,” Gold chided the mayor, as if something had not just forcefully shattered. August didn’t have to see him to know he was sneering. “You wouldn’t want me to have to call the sheriff, would you? Let her know the mayor has anger management issues? Might have to go into therapy then, and that wouldn’t look good for you when you’re battling for custody of a young, fragile boy, now would it?”

“Oh, let’s do call your little pet sheriff, shall we?” Regina snapped back, fire and blood and rage fraying the ends of a usually hypnotic voice. “I’ve been meaning to stop by and let her know just how cozy you’ve been getting with your pretty charge.”

There was sudden dead silence, sharp and serrated, and Belle shrank back from the curtain, her brow furrowed, transparent eyes haunted. Very carefully, August placed a light, reassuring hand on her arm, letting it rest there for just a moment, just long enough to forestall a hint of the shadows in her eyes, before he retreated, not wanting to hem her in.

“Just how long _has_ it been since she’s seen Dr. Hopper?” Now Regina was taunting, menacing, black pleasure beneath false delight. “Maybe the sheriff should be investigating just exactly what it is you’ve been doing with your pet. Or just how sane the pretty Belle actually is. I’m sure Emma would be interested in finding out how—”

Regina’s voice was cut off abruptly, sickeningly, only a split instant before there was a loud thud, and August was enough of a writer, had enough of an imagination, to be able to visualize Gold lunging forward to slam the mayor back against unforgiving surface—visualize it all too well since his own back was still bruised from receiving similar treatment.

Belle jerked forward and August barely noticed in time to snap his arm out in front of her. “No!” he blurted quietly, but her eyes were wild and frantic, and he had to rush to find some way of keeping her out of the way of the Queen and the Dark One. “You’re his secret, remember?” he whispered hurriedly. “You have to stay hidden!”

He didn’t think she heard him, but she stilled when Gold’s sibilant hiss, dangerous and sinister, reached them.

“Are you sure you want to bring this up, dearie?” August shuddered, still able to feel the shiver of Rumplestiltskin’s breath in his face as he’d stared him down. “Because I don’t need a reminder that you broke our deal—and _no one_ breaks deals with me, not even you, your Majesty. Let’s see….what was our agreement again? Ah, yes, Belle for Henry. And that…well, that means Henry is mine.”

August went dizzyingly cold, frighteningly numb, so much so that for an instant he thought he was turning to wood again. Henry—the boy who’d been so alone, so lonely, that he’d latched onto a stranger with no more than a few words about his book exchanged between them. The boy—the son—who stood as the linchpin between two radically opposing sides. A ten year old boy with a bright future, reduced to a bargaining chip, a means of negotiation. There was something very wrong about that, about a child put into such an impossible situation, and August suddenly felt an enormous kinship with the boy.

“I didn’t break our deal!” Regina protested, all taunts gone, replaced by dark desperation. “You still have your little plaything, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah, I still have her, no thanks to you.” Rumplestiltskin’s voice dropped even lower, black, twisting, twining, seductive poison arcing through veins. “You think I don’t know what you did? You think I’ve forgotten the memories in a teacup? And now, after what you did to her, locking her away, she’s trapped in her own mind—a prison she can’t escape!”

“Don’t blame _me_ for that!” Regina snapped, and there was a quick flurry of rustling sounds, as if she had shoved Rumplestiltskin off of her. “You might want to look in a mirror if you’re thinking of assigning blame. Have you ever thought that maybe it’s _you_ making her situation here so much worse? So strong, so unaffected yourself—your very proximity to her is making the curse lash out all the more violently to compensate.”

Silence save for heavy breathing, not even the tap of the cane or the slightest of sibilant words to break it.

August darted a quick glance to Belle to see how she was taking all this. He was sure she knew about the curse, but the rest—deals made with her future at stake and the curse afflicting her with insanity— _had she known any of this_?

She was tense, scared, eyes narrowed as she peered at the curtain as if she could see through it by sheer willpower alone, her lips twisted in an attempt to hide her worry. Another young soul made a bargaining chip, the other half of a deal between two people who could destroy Storybrooke between them, who had already destroyed a world. But she did not shiver, did not shrink, did not run away, and August wished he had even a fraction of her bravery.

“Doesn’t matter,” Rumplestiltskin said finally, and it was only because he had heard him beg forgiveness through tears that August heard and recognized the slight catch in his voice. “You still broke our deal. You forfeited your right to Henry. So I’m going to take him, return the favor, as it were. Oh, not now,” he added when the mayor tried to speak, silky menace overruling blatant danger. “It won’t be as straightforward as all that. No, I’m going to wait. So when Henry comes home late from school you’ll wonder—is it today? Is it now? When he sneaks away to visit Emma, when he skips school, whenever he’s out of your sight, you’ll have to wonder if I’ve taken him. Eventually, if I hold off on collecting, you’ll forget to worry, to wonder. And that’s when he’ll be gone.” Rumplestiltskin’s voice lost all of its calculated casualness, becoming blunt and hard and cruel. “Then he’ll be mine, fair and square, and you’ll know—everything comes at a price.”

“Gold, you—” But whatever dire threats or piteous pleas she was going to make remained unspoken.

“No,” Rumplestiltskin interrupted, and August flinched away from the sheer power of that denial. Belle didn’t flinch, though; August was certain she was the only one who didn’t. “You can go now. _Please_.”

And for whatever reason, whatever expression or weapon Rumplestiltskin had flashed, Regina left, only the frantic echo of a ringing bell to mark her furious passing. And quite suddenly, the fear August had been feeling switched to alarmed wariness, because he could hear the tap of Gold’s cane—headed toward the backroom. Where August stood with Belle.

Grimacing, he made his way to the back door as swiftly and quietly as possible, which was quite a bit more quietly than it would be if his leg were to turn permanently to wood. “Got to go,” he murmured to Belle when she came with him. “I’m glad you’re safe, but I personally have safer places to be.”

“Thank you for helping me,” she said softly, following him out onto the back step, the door open behind her, casting her form in silhouette across the empty alleyway.

“No problem.” August took an extra foolhardy second to flash her a grin. “Maybe you could put in a good word for me?”

Her smile was warm and quick. “Just make sure you keep our secret.”

“I will,” he said solemnly—if there was one thing he was good at, it was keeping secrets. Then, with a last wave, he turned the corner and passed out of her sight. Hesitating only briefly, he flattened himself against the wall and then peeked around the edge, back the way he had come. Being a writer, after all, was all about being an observer and knowing what the important moments were.

Belle was staring in his direction, expression cast into shadow, hair glowing with the light from behind her, but she turned when Gold stepped out onto the back step, his own gaze fixed on her.

“Dearest, what are you doing out here?” In marked contrast to the words he had hurled at Regina like carefully crafted, deadly weapons, these words were more like warm blankets and hot tea and soothing gestures, soft and gentle and caring. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

“I’m sorry.” Belle easily, naturally stepped into the Dark One’s embrace, her head resting on his shoulder, _fitting_ there so obviously, so clearly that August envied their surety. “I forgot where I was supposed to be.”

“That’s all right.” The hand that had slammed August back into a stern tree now cradled Belle’s head and stroked tender caresses down her hair. “Come inside, all right? I’ll be ready to leave in a few minutes, and then I thought we could try that new recipe you pulled out last night for dinner.”

“Sounds good.” Belle glanced back over her shoulder before following Gold into the shop, but August pulled away from the edge before she could see him. He had only wanted to make sure she was okay before leaving her, and now, reassured that she was safer here than anywhere else, he could start back to Granny’s and his abandoned room and neglected typewriter.

His run-in with Belle had temporarily driven his worries away from his mind, and now, even though he was once more alone, once more walking past painful familiarity, he felt a bit more confident, a bit more relaxed, almost calm. Things still weren’t good, the situation was still just as desperate, and he was still slowly turning into wood, but for the first time since waking up that long ago morning with that cursed shooting pain running through his leg, he didn’t feel as if he were being crushed beneath an impossibly heavy burden.

Maybe he would even try writing when he got back to his room. A return to normalcy, a call-back to the life he could no longer hide away in, a luxury he hadn’t allowed himself for months—first because he had been panicked and disbelieving and searching for this small town, and then because it didn’t seem like he was going to be around much longer and what use was there in starting a book he would never have the chance to finish? But now…maybe it would help him order his thoughts. Maybe it would calm him enough to come up with a plan on how to threaten Henry—and the irony of using the boy as a bargaining chip himself, after shrinking away from hearing Rumplestiltskin and the Queen do the same, did not escape him—just enough to force Emma to open her eyes to what was happening all around her. Maybe it would be enough of a release that he could actually get some sleep tonight.

Things were still bleak, but August looked up and he saw stars shining down on him. The same stars that had been there when he’d carried a newborn baby along a highway and shrunk back in terror from the approaching cars. The same stars that had laughed at him when he’d struggled through earning a college degree with nothing more than what money he could earn through three or four separate jobs and his own determination. The same stars that had twinkled with secrets when he’d kissed his first girl and submitted his first story. The same stars that had been there throughout almost his entire life, so different from the stars in their old world and yet the stars he expected to see now every time he looked up.

Things _were_ different. And he wasn’t Pinocchio anymore. He was no longer bound by the reputation of liar and failure and puppet. He had his own story, his own life, his own future here. This world was his, no matter how long he’d been removed from it, and he had a father who loved him.

If Rumplestiltskin could find love after all he’d done, if Regina could care with a heart as black as hers for a boy, then surely Pinocchio could find a bit of redemption.

Determinedly, August began to whistle as he walked, a quiet, cheerful tune.

Tomorrow, he would call Mr. Gold and ask for help with Emma. Tomorrow, he would probably worry and be afraid and feel himself turning stiff and numb. Tomorrow, he would once more shoulder the burden of the task his father had given him.

But for tonight…tonight he was August W. Booth, and he was walking through a lovely night, and he had a whole life ahead of him. Tonight there was time.

Tonight things were good.

Tonight he was still a person.

\---


	15. Out Of Magic

\---

Everything was different. Every time she looked, every time she turned away and then back, things were ever so slightly different, barely altered, just that little bit off. A Mickey Mouse clock moved to a different shelf in his shop. A painting added to the wall in his house. A shop she’d never before noticed there on the street beside another she recognized. An extra tinge of sadness darkening his eyes, straining the lines of his face, adding a sheen to rich eyes.

Those hurt the worst.

But she couldn’t say any of that, not aloud, not here, not to the man sitting before her so patiently, his expression so intent as he waited for her to make a misstep that would allow him to consign her to the gray nothingness of her cell.

“ _Is_ everything all right, Belle?” Dr. Hopper asked her again. His pen tapped against his notepad, only once before he stopped the compulsive movement; she wondered if he had restrained himself because he’d heard the aggravated sigh the pen made.

“Everything is fine,” she said softly, playing with her sleeve. She knew it was imperative that she stick to her script of safe things to say—she would have known that even if Gold hadn’t reiterated it a hundred times on the drive to the therapist’s office.

“Be careful what you say,” he’d told her, deaf to his cufflinks echoing him in teasing mimicry. “Don’t mention objects talking, or tell him that you’ve been skipping time. You have to see him, Belle, but you can’t tell him everything. I won’t be able to be there with you, so…just be careful. I…” His voice had roughened, then, deepened slightly. “I won’t let you be taken away again. No matter what. All right?”

“All right,” she’d replied, waving back at a cheerful mailbox. “I don’t want to be taken from you, Gold,” she’d added. “I love being with you.”

He had swallowed, a muscle fluttering rapidly against his jaw, and when she’d reached out to place her hand on his arm, she’d felt his muscles coiled tightly beneath his skin and sleeve.

“I’ll be careful,” she’d promised.

And she would be. After all, bad enough she was in a cell at all; how much worse would it be if, even in her own hallucinations, she was locked up? Despite knowing Dr. Hopper was watching her closely, she couldn’t restrain her shudder at that thought. _And what would happen to Gold if I were locked up here, too_? _Would he fade away_? No, better by far to stick to a script and lie and smile. She knew how to pretend, how to play a part, how to hide beneath complacent words and seeming docility. She’d been doing it for years, allaying her captors’ anger and avoiding their pills and straitjackets. Even though Dr. Hopper wielded kindness and patience rather than threats and brute force, she could stand firm against him.

For Gold, she could.

“Are you?” Dr. Hopper leaned forward, resting an elbow on his knee, the motion placing his head slightly lower than hers so that she found herself looking down at him. “You’ve been through several changes recently—I heard you moved back in with Mr. Gold.”

“Yes.” She nodded, uncomfortable with this reversal of their usual heights. “He asked me to.”

Dr. Hopper nodded, and she could practically see his thoughts, as if his glasses were actually windows into his mind, could see him picking his words with such care. Trying to trap her, to lure her in and then snap the doors closed behind her. Purposely, she breathed through her nose, careful, evenly measured breaths. It took a lot of effort, but she managed not to dart a glance back at the door, slanted just slightly open at her request.

“So…you’re happy at Mr. Gold’s? You _wanted_ to move in?”

“Yes,” she said, and she was actually a bit impatient now, frustration consuming fear. “Why does everyone think that I didn’t? He asked— _asked_ —and I said yes. I’m happier there, with him, and he’s happier, too, which makes _me_ even happier. I have my own bedroom, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m sorry.” Dr. Hopper made a calming gesture with his hand, straightening in his chair to give her more space between them. “I’m just…just concerned for you. Not in a bad way, Belle. I just want to make sure that everything that’s been happening lately is in _your_ best interests. If you’re happy, if you’re healing, then I’m happy too. But you know the sheriff is worried about other people exerting undue influence over you, and one of the reasons for our meetings is to make sure that you’re content and safe. Since the move to Mr. Gold’s coincided with our missed sessions, I just wanted to make absolutely certain you were all right with it.”

“I am,” she said firmly. For the first time since their session had started, she met his pale, sincere eyes. “I am all right. I am happy. I am safe. I still go over and see Papa, and I’m working at Gold’s pawnshop, and yesterday I even went to see David at the Pet Shelter to try and cheer him up. I met someone new, too—August. He helped me find my way when I got lost.”

“Good. Good.” Dr. Hopper’s smile was small and pleased, congratulatory, as if they were celebrating some sort of milestone and not just a simple introduction. “It’s always good to meet new people. I’m very happy to hear that you’re getting out and around, meeting new people, experiencing new things. That’s a very encouraging sign, Belle.”

“Yes,” she murmured, her eyes falling back to her sleeve, worried between her hands to keep herself from reaching into her pocket and pulling out Gold’s handkerchief to worry over instead. She knew she had to stick to the script, but it had been almost an hour since she’d seen Gold, and she was beginning to wonder exactly what was and wasn’t real—did Dr. Hopper know that his books were so dusty they kept sneezing? Or was that something only _she_ knew?

“And the doors?” Dr. Hopper’s voice was incredibly gentle, so soft and compassionate that Belle almost burst into tears. Because she _was_ still worried about the doors, and Gold had had to open them all for her to come here, and she had almost screamed when her car door had stuck slightly before he could open it. Because even now, worrying about her script and fighting not to say _bless you_ to the books’ sneezes, she still felt a desperate urge to flee to the door and slip out before it could close forever behind her.

But she did have a script, and she needed to stick to it. Gold was waiting outside for her, and if the door _did_ close, she knew he would open it for her. He could always open any and every door, no matter whether they were locked or not; he had promised her.

So she lifted her eyes again and made herself meet Dr. Hopper’s gaze. She didn’t smile, though; that would have been trying too hard, and Gold had told her that little touches did far more than any too-large, obviously untrue gestures. “I’m doing better with them,” she said, and was proud of herself when she managed to get the entire sentence out without a single tremor marring her voice. “They don’t bother me at the pawnshop at all. And most days, I don’t even think of them at Gold’s house.”

“Good,” Dr. Hopper said again, and he was so happy for her, so pleased, that Belle felt suddenly very ashamed for her lies. She looked away, tugging at her sleeve so hard she thought it might rip. _It’s necessary_ , she reminded herself. This deception was securing her freedom, winning her another day outside that dull non-existence of imprisonment, so even though she felt bad, she wouldn’t cave into her guilt.

“Are you sleeping through the nights still?”

Belle hadn’t yet been able to figure out why he kept asking her this. She couldn’t remember having nightmares, but he mentioned them, as if she had complained of having them once, so she supposed she must have suffered them during that first week after her release, the week she still couldn’t remember, try as hard as she might.

“I am,” she replied, and was happy that this, at least, wasn’t a lie. August had spoken of lies, of trust, of promises, and the pain in his eyes had taken her aback, as had his relief and gratefulness when she’d told him that she believed him. She flinched away from Archie when she imagined what expression _he_ might hold should he find out just how many lies she had spoken in their fifty minutes together.

“It sounds like you’re doing very well,” he pronounced, oblivious to her thoughts. “Is there anything _you_ wanted to talk about or ask me before we wrap up?”

“No,” she began, before trailing off. Hesitating, she bit her lip, then blurted out, “Did I know the mayor before… _before_?”

Dr. Hopper’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “The mayor? I…I don’t know. I suppose you’d probably met her. Why?”

She shrugged, shifting uncomfortably. “I don’t know. I…I heard her, talking to Gold, and it seemed…she sounded familiar.”

“I know you’re having trouble with some memories,” the therapist said gingerly, “but I don’t think it’s anything to worry overmuch about. They’ll probably trickle back slowly, painlessly. It’s just your subconscious releasing them as you grow ever more adjusted and stronger, better able to face them. It’s a good thing, really.”

“Okay.” Belle chanced a tremulous smile, somewhat reassured. _Perhaps I met her during that missing week_ , she decided. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” he assured her. “I really am on your side, so please don’t ever hesitate to ask me anything or talk to me about anything that’s bothering you.”

“You’re on my side.” Belle turned the words over and over again in her mind. Doctors had never been on her side before, never wanted to help her, never treated her with kindness or gentleness, and yet there was something about Archie Hopper that made her want to trust him, want to relax in his presence. She studied him intently for a long moment, wondering just how _much_ he was on her side. Would he keep her secrets if she told him that his clock was whispering gossip in her ear? Would he help Gold keep her out of her cell if she confided in him about the hour she had spent in the backroom of the pawnshop, apparently curled up and muttering in a corner, before he had woken her with her name and a finger trickling down her cheek?

She couldn’t risk it. Even if Dr. Hopper tried to help her, she had a hard time believing that the sheriff would do the same. And if what she had understood about Gold and the mayor’s confrontation was true, then the mayor herself would do her best to separate Belle from her beloved pawnbroker. So, best not to risk Dr. Hopper’s goodwill. Best not to trust him. Best to keep her secrets between her and Gold alone.

So she made her farewells, and nodded when Dr. Hopper told her to be careful not to miss so many sessions again, and slipped out the open door, and smiled to find Gold pacing there in the hallway painted with golden hues as if to frame him in his namesake.

There was a tenseness to the line of his shoulders, a perilous expectancy around his eyes, a coiled rigidity to the way he clenched his cane in his fist, as he caught sight of her. “Well?” he asked, almost breathless. He was prepared, waiting, ready to go to war for her, to spirit her away, to fight all the forces the town could send at them, ready to rip down walls and tear down doors and battle any champion, all for her sake.

Love and fondness and vast wonder poured through her, and a smile seemed like such an inadequate way to express her overwhelming emotions, so she wrapped her hands around his arm and leaned into him and kissed him delicately on the lips, her love only swelling higher when he softened and gentled and calmed at her touch.

“Everything’s fine,” she told him, and kissed his smile, unable to resist.

It didn’t relieve his worry entirely, but it was enough to ease his tension and allow him to bend and curl in around her when she tucked herself at his side, slotting herself into the place that was seemingly made for her.

He took her back to the shop where they ate the lunch she—or rather, _they_ —had prepared, her packing the sandwiches and bottles of water while laughing at his teasing and ducking away from his questing fingers, looking to snatch an early snack. She knew that his antics had been his way of trying to keep her from being nervous about her upcoming session with Dr. Hopper, and it had worked too, up until they had actually gotten into the car to drive to his office.

But now there was nothing more to be worried about. Gold assured her the sheriff was too busy trying to get custody of the young boy she had met what seemed so long ago to worry about causing trouble for them, and now that Dr. Hopper had been fooled, they were in the all clear.

“And the mayor?” she asked him, taking a sip of her iced tea. “She won’t come after us?”

“Oh, no,” he asserted, low and intent and dangerous. “She knows what she stands to lose if she does. One thing to threaten, quite another to actually face retribution for doing something.”

Belle wasn’t sure she understood what that meant, but she hadn’t wholly understood the conversation she and August had overheard either, and she knew Gold would protect her no matter what, so she let the topic slide away. It was hard to focus and concentrate on anything for any period of time, anyway, hard not to be distracted by the conversations rustling all about them, filling up the vast, close shop with whispers, so many of them she thought they might drive her mad if she didn’t stay close to Gold. The whispers were muted and hushed, almost afraid to come too near, around him.

When they went home that night—and Belle felt a thrill just to call it that, even in her own mind, _home_ —Gold lingered for dinner, then saw her sequestered in the library with a book and excused himself, saying there was something he needed to retrieve from its hiding place.

“I have a feeling Ms. Swan will be needing it soon,” he told her, a wily gleam in his dark eyes. “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience her by not having it ready. It’ll need polishing, I’m sure.”

He was always making deals—she was sure he was, though she couldn’t quite recall why she thought so—so she smiled at his restrained eagerness, his fiendish delight, and turned to her book when he said he didn’t need any help.

Not that she got much reading done. With Gold out of the room, everyone wanted to talk to her, throwing out their own thoughts and observations and advice.

“Make sure he doesn’t try to control you,” the empty picture frame on the desk counseled her.

“Yes, but don’t frighten him away,” interjected one half of a set of bookends, painted eyes glistening with refracted light.

“He’s too distracted now, anyway,” added the other half of the set. “His plans are all coming to fruition—you won’t rate very high on his priorities right now.”

“Nonsense,” the first half countered. “He does love her.”

“Of course he does,” Belle stated defiantly. “I don’t know why you keep trying to convince me that he doesn’t.”

“I’m not saying he doesn’t love you,” the picture frame argued. It looked so bare and lonely without a picture within its perimeter; Belle resolved to find a picture to place within. Maybe then it wouldn’t be quite so cynical and pessimistic. “I’m just saying that he doesn’t quite know _how_ to love, and so you have to be careful not to let him mistreat you, even with the best of intentions.”

“He won’t!” Belle insisted, echoed by one half of the set of bookends as well as the pair of glasses on the desk. “He’s lonely, and he’s afraid of losing me, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to lock me away. He’s been nothing but kind and gentle to me!”

“Has he?” hissed the cushion at her back, startling her. She stared at it askance as it moved to face her, its tassels waving hypnotically. “What about when he shouted at you? Drove you away? Chased you into icy streets?”

“Don’t,” she said numbly, her voice distant and hollow. “Don’t bring that up. That was a long time ago.”

“Maybe.” The cushion shrugged, its cruelty at odds with its plump appearance. “But do people ever really change?”

“Belle?”

She started and looked away from the now-motionless cushion to the wide-open door, where Gold stood, staring at her with an indecipherable expression. His stance was easy, casual, his legs spread apart, his cane before him, hands placed lightly over it. And yet, there was something in the slant of his mouth, the shadows in his eyes, the too-purposeful stillness of his fingers, that made her think he was not nearly as calm as he wanted her to think he was.

“Yes?” she asked, reluctantly setting her book aside. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I did. Ms. Swan won’t be unprotected when she goes to slay a dragon, not that she’ll thank me for it.” Gold’s smile was mirthless, hiding that peculiar impatience he wouldn’t explain.

Belle let out a tiny laugh. “I can never tell when you’re joking.”

“Yet still you laugh,” he countered. “Should I be offended by that?”

“No.” She crossed the room to stand by his side, looking up at him, basking in the glow that added untold depths to his eyes whenever he looked at her. “I laugh because I’m happy.”

“Belle…” He gazed down at her, his voice trailing off into nothing, for a long moment before he shook his head slightly. “I’m glad. You’ll…you’ll tell me, won’t you? If you ever _stop_ being happy?”

“I would,” she replied with a shrug, wishing she could lift her hands and wipe away the doubt and fear from his features as easily as if she were wiping away tears. But these wounds were inside him, and she well knew what it was to be broken on the inside, to be afraid and unable to conquer that terror, so she only smiled and added, “But if I’m not happy, it’ll probably be because you’re not there, so it’ll be hard to tell you.”

His thumb traced a wondering, disbelieving trail down the side of her face, his eyes studying her so fixedly, so determinedly, so carefully, as if she were one of his mysteries to be unraveled.

An instant later, though, his vulnerability was snatched back inside himself, wrapped up in layers and layers of protective walls, hidden and concealed, and he took a tiny step backward, setting some little bit of space between them.

“Shall we call it a night?” he asked, not even hiding that he was changing the subject. “I have a feeling that tomorrow will be…quite the exciting day.”

“All right.” She was curious about the slight emphasis he put on _exciting_ , about the distracted gleam in his eyes, but she didn’t ask about it. He might have told her already, after all, might have explained it, might have let her in on the secret he brandished so flamboyantly, like a trophy. So much slipped her mind, these days, and if he had told her, she didn’t want to remind him that she wasn’t quite all there.

Again, despite herself, she had to stifle the surge of guilt roiling within her. She was crazy—they both knew it—and yet she let him insist on keeping her near him. It was dangerous and…and _crazy_ …but still she said nothing, just tucked herself into her place at his side and followed him to her bedroom. _It’s_ my _hallucination_ , she reminded herself fiercely. _And that means I can make it look however I want_. And Gold could not fit in her cell, so here she would remain.

As he had done every night, Gold told her good night at the door to her bedroom, dropping a lingering kiss to her cheek and waiting for her to step inside before he continued down the hallway to his own room. And as she did every night, Belle readied for bed and waited until the light adorning the bottom of Gold’s door transformed to a dark pool before she left her own room behind and padded into his.

He always seemed taken aback when she came in, but he never sent her away, only pulled back the covers in mute permission. She slipped in beside him, instinctively moving to huddle next to his heat. But this time when she touched him, she didn’t find the warmth she expected.

With a hiss, she pulled her hand back. “You’re cold!” she exclaimed even as she pressed closer to him, arranging the blankets more closely around him—if she didn’t do it, she knew he’d lie there and let himself freeze. She was inordinately pleased when he hesitantly draped his arm around her and dropped a light kiss on her forehead. Laying her hand flat on his chest, she waited for the minute shudder to pass through his frame, chasing away his tension, the sign she had come to know meant he had dropped his guard, even if ever so slightly and so regrettably temporarily.

“Do you have nightmares?” she asked him, almost whispering, tilting her head against his shoulder so she could see his profile. It was the first time she’d had the courage to ask it, and she hoped it wouldn’t make that customary tension flood back into his body. He didn’t retreat, but he was silent, so she hastily added, “It’s just…you approach sleep like it’s an obstacle. I thought that…that maybe you had nightmares.”

“I do,” he murmured, his voice a quiet hum in his chest, a gentle vibration under her hand. “But I prefer nightmares to the alternative.”

She raised her eyebrows. “To dreams?”

“Yes.” He shifted beneath her, pulled her more tightly against him, kept his face turned so that the moonlight couldn’t illuminate whatever expression he wore. Not that she needed to see him; his tone and his embrace were eloquent enough all on their own. “With nightmares, at least when you wake up, you’re pleasantly surprised. But if you have dreams…well, then, you have to wake up and face a harsher reality. Better to have neither and just keep a steady medium—avoid surprises altogether. Take the world like it is. It’s not like wishes do anything for you anyway.”

Belle felt something thick and foreign move through her, tracing her veins, filling up the empty places in her chest, enveloping her thoughts, something full and warm and giving. She couldn’t put a name to it—it wasn’t pity, but nor was it only compassion. It was heavy and whole and overwhelming. Maybe it was empathy, or maybe it was just a connection forged between them, allowing her to feel what it must be like to live as he did. She had thought her cell was an in-between existence, but now she thought it was better than what Gold faced—trapped between the past he regretted and loathed and longed for all at once and the future he seemed so impatient to reach and yet was so terrified of. Trapped in a _non_ state of being, keeping himself steady and never-changing, and all by choice, which meant that feeling—feeling _anything_ —for him had to be so awfully, incredibly painful, terribly so if he would choose _nothing_ over _feeling_. She wondered if—hoped that—she made it better for him, at least a little bit.

“And what would you choose?” His question caught her before she could sink too deeply into whatever emotion it was making her indescribably sad.

“I would take the dreams and forget about waking up,” she answered before she remembered that he didn’t like to be reminded that he was a hallucination. But he only huffed a quiet laugh and ran his free hand through her hair.

“That’s one way of dealing with it, I suppose.”

She smiled at his laughter, no matter how quiet it was, and felt her sadness recede. He did so much for her, protecting her and keeping her safe and waking her up when she lost herself; it made her happy to know she could make him laugh, could give him a place to relax, could be there for him when the nightmares came.

“But…” He was silent for so long that she thought he had decided not to speak after all, but then he curled himself around her, burying his hand in her hair, wrapping her tighter with his other arm. His voice was the gentlest, quietest whisper in her ear, a flutter of air over her skin. “But sometimes reality can be even better than dreams.”

Moved by his words, tears wetting her eyelashes for no reason she could put into words, Belle tilted her head and kissed his jaw. The only answer she had for him, but it seemed enough for him. Another shudder rippled through his body, and an extra layer of tension she hadn’t even realized he still held poured out of him. And when he slipped into sleep, she dared to hope that maybe he wouldn’t be plagued by either nightmares or dreams for this one night.

She thought her own sleep would have been as dreamless, if given the chance, but she hadn’t been asleep for longer than a few moments when she was woken by the sound of crying.

Her first thought was that she hadn’t helped Gold at all, that maybe she had only made his nightmares worse, but it wasn’t him crying. When she lifted her head from his chest and looked down at him, she saw that he was sound asleep, his face dry, his features relaxed in sleep, though the tiny crease between his brows was still there. Belle lifted a finger and ghosted it over his brow before another sob rent the air and captured her attention.

Keeping her movements quiet and slow so as not to wake Gold, Belle slipped from bed, her bare feet chilled against the floor. She drifted through the house, following the sounds of the soft, mournful weeping—out of the bedroom, through the hallway, down the stairs, until she found herself in a sitting room, facing the origin of the sobs.

Piled on the floor beside a desk sat a tiny pile of white and blue shards. She could not say how she knew, but she was certain that if she were to painstakingly glue them all back together, she would find herself with a teacup.

But not a whole teacup.

A chipped teacup.

She frowned, her hand rubbing her forehead as she tried to make sense of her thoughts. _A teacup? Why…why does that seem so familiar? So…so important?_

“You have to help it,” said the calculator on the desk, the one Gold always used when he was going through his books, urgency coating its usually measured voice.

“Of course,” Belle agreed instantly. She knelt on the floor before the ruins of what had once been a teacup. Vaguely, she thought she was crying, too, but her tears seemed distant and unimportant next to the plight of these few, weeping shards. “But…but how? What should I do?”

“Pick up the pieces,” the clock on the mantel advised her.

Belle instantly recoiled. “No! I can’t do that! I mustn’t…mustn’t touch anything sharp.” She couldn’t, strangely, quite recall why that seemed so important, but she thought of Gold, asleep and vulnerable and trusting, and she shuddered away from the sharp pieces of porcelain lying so helpless before her. “No,” she said again, a solemn vow.

“Well…” The calculator, always helpful, tapped out a thoughtful rhythm before suggesting, “Maybe if you just touched them to put them away? You could lock them up where no one can be hurt by them.”

“Yes.” She bit her lip, scared and nervous but eager to do anything that would stop the insistent weeping. “Yes. I think that would be all right. But what shall I put them in?”

“Here.” A magnifying glass pointed with its handle to a small chest, hand-painted with a delicate tracery of vines and roses.

“Yes, that’ll do.” Belle smiled and rose to her feet to retrieve the box, relieved to find it already empty. Then, holding her breath, trembling on the edge of something perilous and dangerous, she knelt again and reached out with numb hands to pick up the shards and deposit them inside the wooden chest.

“What are you doing, dearest?”

With a small shriek, Belle fell away from the shards, panicking and guilty and startled, staring wide-eyed at the slight, narrow form silhouetted in the doorway. “I’m sorry!” she babbled. “I wasn’t going to hurt anyone, I promise! I was just…it was hurting so much, I just wanted to help! I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t have hurt anyone!”

The shards had fallen abruptly silent, the other articles in the room watching voicelessly.

The silhouette— _why does it look so familiar, him stepping forward into a room with the light behind him?_ —moved, shifted closer to her, and his dark eyes were suddenly lit with the reflection of the lamp by the door. Something deep and dark and trembling stirred there in his gaze, something tight and tragic in the downturn of his mouth, something pained and hurting in the slump of his shoulders. But he was quiet and calm as he moved to stand beside her, his hand soft and gentle on her head. “It’s all right, dearest. You did nothing wrong. It’s…actually a good idea.”

Though he leaned on a cane, he did not even grimace as he knelt at her side, so anguished and solitary that Belle couldn’t help but soften toward him. She did not flinch away when their hands bumped each other as they carefully collected the broken remnants of his teacup and deposited them so carefully, so reverently in the painted chest. His hands did not tremble, but she thought, oddly, that _he_ was, maybe not physically, but inwardly.

“I thought,” she began tentatively, “that maybe…maybe we could fix it?”

The man beside her, familiar and comforting, was silent a moment, his hands moving so slowly to pick up and cradle the last few pieces before setting them so carefully with the others inside the box. “Not everything can be fixed, Belle,” he finally said, and the sound of her name on his lilting tongue almost made her gasp.

“But…” She looked away, suddenly and wholly bereft, weighted down with grief and sorrow she couldn’t explain, couldn’t define, a feeling of loss as if even the hope of something had just been irrevocably taken away from her. Bowing her head as he closed the lid over the now-silent shards, she blinked away tears.

His hand on hers, long and calloused fingers curling so comfortingly around her palm, startled her and soothed her simultaneously. “But…we can try,” he offered, and there were tears in his eyes too.

Her smile was immediate, loss vanquished, sorrow obliterated. She slipped easily to her feet, eager and excited, and moved to help him stand without even thinking about it. “Where should we keep it? Until we can fix it?”

Shifting his weight as he took up his cane again, he thought a moment, then seemed to hesitate before meeting her gaze. His eyes were dark hollows, drinking in the light and reflecting back embers. “I know a place. A room upstairs. No one ever goes in there, so it will be safe and undisturbed.”

“All right,” she agreed. She picked up the chest and cradled it against her body protectively. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she was absolutely certain that these shards were immensely important. And she thought that maybe, somehow, they were one of the only things holding together the man walking slowly at her side, leading her upstairs.

He came to a sudden halt at a door midway down the hallway. It was closed, and for an instant, she was afraid, but he reached out his long, clever fingers, and she relaxed. Sometime in the past he had opened an immovable door, and so she knew that she didn’t have to worry about locks when he was around.

“It’s perfect,” she declared when the door swung open to reveal a pristine bedroom, dust-free, colored in rich tones, its every inch covered with love and apologies and hope. She stepped inside and was not even surprised when the man stayed on the threshold, standing there to guide her back to him but unable to traverse this room’s floor.

Belle didn’t question him, only smiled tenderly up at him and said, “I’ll put it somewhere you can see it from the doorway, somewhere safe.”

His replying nod was faint, almost not even there, but Belle saw it and knew she needed to hurry before the open wounds inside this room bled him dry.

With fleeting steps, she hurried to the nightstand by the bed and placed the chest in its center, near a silver pin designed to close a cloak or shawl. The light from the hallway fell in shimmering strands along the decorated wood of the chest, and Belle nudged it just a bit more toward the center of the nightstand to ensure that it wouldn’t be knocked to the floor, wouldn’t spill its precious treasure beneath their feet.

As soon as it was out of her hands and safe, Belle felt a weight lift from her shoulders, then she turned and flitted hastily back to the man’s side. “Ready,” she said breathlessly once she was standing outside the room, reaching out with a hand to wrap her fingers around his arm just below his elbow.

“Perhaps…” he said, softly, as if voicing a fantasy, afraid it would sound ridiculous in the light of day. “Perhaps by the time someone comes to stay in this room, we’ll have fixed it.”

“I’ll help,” she offered immediately, knowing that no one else could help him do it. Perhaps no one else could even get him to try.

His smile was every bit as joyful as it was pained, an odd combination Belle recognized as if she had seen it every day of her life. “Thank you,” he said, and he dipped his head in gratitude, an almost archaic, outdated, but utterly charming gesture. “But come, it’s late. We should get some sleep.”

“I was trying, but it was crying so loud,” Belle complained. She did not know this man’s name, could not quiet the humming of the shadows long enough to remember it, but she did not think it odd at all that she kept her hand on his arm, leaned her head tiredly against his shoulder.

He let out a quiet sigh, almost a laugh. “Yes, I remember what that’s like.”

His steps were sure despite his limp, and after a slight hesitation when he turned from the door closed on the shards, he led her unerringly to a bedroom at the end of the hall. The covers on the bed were disturbed, and she felt guilty for pulling him from his sleep; he did not look as if he got nearly enough rest.

When he slipped his arm from her loose grip, she turned to face him. He had not moved from the door—still open, she noted with relief—and now he watched her, patient, waiting to see what she would do. She thought it might have ordinarily been awkward, climbing into bed with a man whose name she could not remember, but it felt so natural and right with him that she did not even question it, and when she slipped beneath the covers, the man’s shoulders loosened and he slowly joined her.

_He never makes the first move_ , she thought, unable to explain how she knew that, and so she scooted closer to him until he took her in his arms. As soon as she was enfolded in his cold and welcoming embrace, a sigh of contentment floated up from the depths of her being to be released into the darkness.

“I can’t protect you from them anymore, can I?” His voice was sudden and unexpected, but Belle didn’t start or flinch. Instead, she laid her hand flat over his chest to better feel the tiny hum his every word made shiver across her palm.

“What do you mean?” she asked drowsily.

“The voices you hear. You can hear them even when you’re with me now. Can’t you?”

She was silent, suddenly wide awake, for the first time uncomfortable in his presence, disturbed by the anguish beneath his monotone words. “Should I not be able to?” she finally asked.

His arms tightened around her, as if he were seeking comfort even as he tried to give it. “It’s all right. It’s not your fault. We were just…well, we were too happy for this place. But don’t worry—soon it will be over. Soon I’ll have everything I need to…to fix it. The cup. The room. You. Me. We’re so close, Belle. Just a bit longer.”

“I’m not afraid,” she told him in an effort to soothe away the desperation tensing him beneath her, tightening his words.

He let out a chuckle that was little more than a breath. “Of course you’re not. My brave Belle. You shall have to be brave enough for the both of us.”

“That’s easy,” she said slowly, wonderingly, “when you’re with me.” She had meant it as a reassurance and so she was alarmed when he let out a breath that was not a chuckle, a breath that resembled a sob.

“I love you,” he whispered, and he pressed a kiss to her temple, and just like that, Belle remembered that his name was Gold, that she loved him, that he had a son, that he had spoken of broken intentions over shattered cups, that he had kissed her and said good night to her in front of her bedroom, that they had spoken of dreams.

A slight, miniscule shiver quaked its way through her frame, because she had not skipped time and she had not woken somewhere else, but she had forgotten his name and had even forgotten that she loved him and what if, next time, she forgot that she trusted him and that he was not to be hurt? What if, one day, she picked up something sharp and he came in and she made him bleed, cut him, betrayed his trust, the same trust that allowed him to be vulnerable with her?

_I have to leave him_ , she thought, and it was ice poured over her soul, cold and burning all at once in its necessity. _I have to protect him_.

But right now he was holding her and waiting, his love still echoing in the room, and tomorrow was soon enough. She could not understand why he thought it a hard thing to be brave when just those three words he uttered so breathlessly, so poignantly, could fill her up with strength and peace enough to face her realization with equanimity. But she knew that he worried about it, that he feared her leaving, so she burrowed closer to his side.

“I love you too,” she replied, and as much as the rest of her world was in doubt, those words were the one thing she knew to be absolutely and inarguably true.

 ---

He was different in the morning, more focused, driven, single-minded to the point of distractibility. It amused Belle, flooded her with pained fondness, to watch his carefully apportioned movements, his methodical purpose turned into a stately, strange dance, his eyes sharp and intent and afire with impatience she had never before seen so strong and undiminished in him. He drank his coffee as if it were his last meal before a battle, dressed as if he were donning armor, looked at her as if she were everything he could ever possibly want to come back to from war.

“Not much time now,” he murmured as he opened the front door for her. “Soon, very soon, everything will be made right.”

“Good,” she said even though she wasn’t entirely sure what he meant. She didn’t want to dull the vibrant energy humming beneath his skin like lightning, didn’t want to quench the almost-manic hope sparking like magic in his eyes. Maybe if he still possessed this frantic purpose, he would not be so sad when she left him to check herself into the hospital.

He softened when he looked at her, as she walked out the door he so bravely held open for her, something indefinable and arrested moving across his features, and he placed his hand over hers for an instant, just a tiny moment of time, a warm touch. And for a moment, he wasn’t Gold. For a moment, he was someone else, someone more ethereal and haunting and magical.

And Belle found herself flinching away, because she did not want him to be ghostlike or transient. He might only be a hallucination, but she wanted— _needed_ —him to be real, more real than anything else, especially the cell. She needed him to endure even after she left him, needed to know that he was still strong and safe and severe and damaged but oh so beautiful—even if she couldn’tbe there with him.

Hurt flickered in his compelling eyes, but he only closed the door behind them. “Soon,” he said again, a quiet, powerful promise that made knots tighten in her stomach.

Soon she would be gone. Soon she would be locked away.

Soon he would be safe.

She did not like feeling broken, as she did when he looked at her like that, as if she were missing something, but she knew she deserved the look. She _was_ broken, and unlike the cup, _she_ could not be fixed. _Which is why I have to leave_ , she reminded herself, and sincerely hoped that she could be as brave as he thought she was.

At the shop, she helped him unload the long, flat case he had unearthed the night before, feeling an almost visceral thrill of adrenaline when he asked her to hold the door open for him. He did not seem to harbor a moment’s doubt that she wouldn’t be able to open it or that she’d be too scared to hold it long enough for him to pass through. _Another reason I need to leave, so I don’t disappoint him_ , she thought, but she couldn’t deny the triumph she felt when she opened the door, held it wide for him, and closed it _behind_ them.

Though that was, perhaps, the last time she would ever get to control exactly when doors opened or closed.

The chores needed to be done still, no matter her decision, and Belle went about doing them with an air of mourning; she was glad Gold was too preoccupied polishing a sword and digging up an old, tiny key to notice her sorrow. As she drifted the dust-cloth over items and shelves and counters, she also trailed lingering touches over them, storing up inside herself memories she would use to combat the grim reality of her cell. Maybe, if she remembered them all well enough, she would be able to one day imagine herself free again.

Despite her own preoccupation, Belle made certain to watch Gold very closely. That moment of haunting unreality outside his house scared her more than she cared to admit, so she kept a close eye on him to make sure he didn’t disappear. She was turning herself in to protect him, and she needed to know that he was still there, still alive and real to her, if she was going to be strong enough to voluntarily walk back to her cell at the hospital.

Before she could turn herself in, however, she first needed to find a way to slip free of Gold’s protective concern. He was so careful of her, particularly since the night she had wandered from the backroom of the pawnshop and found August, and even in the midst of his coiled intensity, he kept close to her. Or perhaps it was she who kept close to him; it was so hard to tell.

_Perhaps I can pretend I’m going to visit Papa_ , she thought, but before she could contemplate how to phrase it so that Gold wouldn’t insist on accompanying her, he went suddenly and completely rigid and fixed beside her. His head came up, his nostrils flaring, pupils dilating, and with rushed, steady steps, he moved to peer through the glass of the door. A small, fierce smile curved his thin lips and made him resemble a bird of prey about to swoop down on an unsuspecting rabbit—or perhaps he was a dragon, leading the knights come to ambush him into a trap of his own.

“Finally,” he breathed, an expulsion of breath that seemed to contain within its fluttering hope decades upon decades of impatience and yearning and something else Belle couldn’t quite identify.

“What is it?” she asked curiously, setting aside her dust-cloth and moving to join him. She couldn’t see anyone in the street, but Gold’s eyes were far-seeing, as if he could look down avenues and times wholly outside her understanding.

“It’s the mayor,” he replied, voice low and burning with power that sent chills to pebble her flesh, “and the lovely sheriff. They’re coming to pay us a visit.”

Belle felt herself go numb and clumsy, her limbs tingling and swelling until she couldn’t even take a step and the shop swirled and tilted all around her. _Not yet! I’m not ready yet!_ It wasn’t even fair—she had surrendered to the necessity of being locked up, so couldn’t they let her choose the fate of her own free will? Did they have to come _now_ , to force her into the prison that was to have been her sacrificial gift to Gold?

_Always,_ always _just a little too late_ , she mourned, and wrapped her arms around herself in a useless attempt to drive away the apathy shrouding her.

“Coming—for…for me?” she managed to ask through the sickness at the pit of her stomach and the lump in her throat, through a dry tongue and stiff lips, through terrible fear and an awakening anger at the unfairness and injustice of it all.

“What?” His attention was abruptly on her, stripped of its cunning foresight, all his concern and regret and love for her exposed. His hands were warm on her shoulder and her cheek, warm and solid, driving away terror and the whispers of the shadows and forestalling the panic trying to take control of her. “No, no, dearest, not that. I would never let them take you, never!” he promised, ferocity and danger and promise all rolled up in that single assurance. “They are coming for something different—Henry has been hurt, and they are coming to bargain for my help.”

“Henry?” She stared up at him, remembering the young boy with the wise eyes and sage tone, the seer trapped in the body of a child, and maybe that was only a fancy given her by madness, but she felt a hot flare of fear rise up in her at the thought of anything bad happening to such a young child. “What happened to him?”

“Nothing much.” And his attention moved from her, swinging back to whatever plan of his was coming to fruition, like a magnetized lodestone, his hands dropping away from her. His eyes were deep, dark shadows, black in the dim shop, and the glare from the glass door reflected tiny beads of sharp _focus,_ like sparks, in the black pupils as he looked toward the two women Belle still couldn’t see. “He’ll be fine, eventually. But first…first, they will do something for me.”

“No.” The word was so quiet it was almost inaudible, but to Belle, it seemed to hold all the impact of an earthquake shivering through her soul, erupting to spew out rocks and stones and terrible damage to all it touched. She stared at the man before her in dawning horror, in horrified comprehension. Menace and danger and sly cunning and threats—she had known he possessed them all, had rested secure in the knowledge that they would allow him to protect her…but she had never once stopped to consider what those qualities, those attributes, might do if he were to send them lashing outward to anyone else.

“Gold,” she said, and there was something in her tone that made him look back at her. “Please… _please_ tell me you didn’t hurt that boy. Please tell me this isn’t because of your argument with the mayor!” She took a deep, shuddering breath and forced out the next words. “Please tell me that boy isn’t hurt because of me.”

“Of course not,” he dismissed, as if the very notion were impossible. Something very like impatience moved through him as he divided his glances between her and the street where now, finally, Belle caught sight of the mayor and the sheriff coming toward the pawnshop. “The boy was hurt because no one ever stops to consider the price or the consequences of their actions. He’ll be safe—that is, should the sheriff realize her role in all this in time.”

“You…you could tell her,” Belle suggested, almost in a whisper. She was looking at Gold and for the first time she thought she was seeing him the way everyone else did, thought she was finally seeing why everyone she met warned her away from the meticulous, calculating, tricky pawnbroker. “You could save that boy. Couldn’t you?”

“At what price?” Gold shook his head, flipped an indifferent hand. “No, everything will work out exactly as it’s supposed to. I told you, Belle, soon I’ll have everything I need to fix it all. I’ve waited too long for this. Now, please, go wait in the back, won’t you?” He turned and met her gaze and for the first time seemed to realize that she was shocked and dazed and horrified. Something stirred and flickered in his expression, some shadow chasing lines across his features, but it was hidden away too quickly for her to decipher it, and his jaw clenched, his mouth tightening, eyes narrowing. “Go wait in the back, Belle,” he said again, more quietly. “It’s for the best.”

“Gold—”

“They’re almost here!” he snapped, reaching out a hand to push her toward the backroom. “I don’t want them to see you. Their focus should be all on young Henry, not on you and how they can exploit you to hurt me or get what they want.”

Belle flinched away from him, recoiling from his touch. She stared up at him, and she did not care that he had frozen, that he was staring at her with something like regret, that he had yanked his hand back from her as if burned. All she could focus on was the manic intensity flaring in his eyes like the sun, a madness totally alien to her own and yet just as undeniable, fixed in orbit around whatever goal he thought worth endangering a young boy’s life and manipulating the lives of so many people—maybe even everyone—in this town.

“Belle…” He grimaced, reached out as if to touch her face, let his hand drop before it could touch and mesmerize her anew. His shoulders slumped, and Belle realized again that he was older than she, something ageless and powerful and so very awfully broken inside him.

This was her opportunity, she knew. He was sending her to the backroom, was going to be preoccupied with his schemes and his ploys, and she could slip away and be at the hospital before he realized that she had gone.

But she did not want to leave with these hurtful, searing words as their last, did not want to turn her back as this new, startling wall built itself up between them.

He was damaged and broken and so layered that she had not even realized these layers he was displaying now had been there, but she had known he was all those things already, and no matter how they frightened and unsettled her, he was still Gold. He was still hers.

“All right,” she said softly. She did not touch him, did not answer the mute apology she saw in him, did not say anything else. Only looked at him, storing this memory up, too, because even though it was darker and colder than her others of him, it was still him, and maybe when the cell grew too close and confining, when the orderlies hurt her as they held her down to inject her with debilitating drugs, when their poisons moved through her veins and sent the world skittering away from her…maybe then she would think on this memory of him, and treasure the cruelty and the sinister edge and the fierce devotion. Maybe she would remember it, and imagine that he was just as _focused_ , just as _driven,_ just as _unhinged_ in his search for her and his desire to save her and protect her and open the door for her again.

“Just go,” he said softly, and she knew he did not mean any farther than the backroom, knew he did not know this was goodbye and those were the last of his words she would have, but they hurt nonetheless. For a brief moment, with them echoing in her soul, she felt an odd sense of déjà vu, a disorienting instant of familiarity, compounding her hurt and magnifying, multiplying it until she almost crumpled to the floor at his feet, felled by his words and his jagged edges and his preoccupation.

But she wanted to be brave, and this was her chance, her gift to him, so she turned her back and ducked past the divider curtain and went into the backroom. And when the bell over the front door rang, she opened the back door and slipped out into the dusk shadows.

For once, nothing and no one spoke to her. The town was as silent as her tears. It only made it worse because his voice wasn’t there to fill the silence, his breathing wasn’t there to break the stillness, his hands weren’t there to chase away the cold. There was only her and even the voices had abandoned her and night was closing its silken wings over her, and yet this was still better than what was waiting for her at her destination.

And still she walked on. She kept her chin canted high, kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, kept her feet headed directly toward the hospital. She had been scared too long; all that was left to her, the only method of redeeming herself, was to turn herself over.

The closer she drew to the hospital, though, the more she began to doubt herself.

Turn herself in? Lock herself away? How would shutting away all the light and happiness and joy in her life save Gold? How could she protect him when she wouldn’t even be with him? Wouldn’t her absence only make the shadows in his eyes and the darkness on his soul grow to blot out all the smiles and pleasure and softness he had unearthed and dusted off for her?

Or was that only her cowardice speaking, trying to convince her to turn away?

“Are you all right?”

Belle was afraid to quit moving, not sure that she would be able to start again if she once let herself stop, but the feminine voice was so kind and concerned that she couldn’t help but turn and look over her shoulder at a slender woman with ebony hair hurrying up to her.

“Are you okay?” the woman asked again, even more urgently, and too late, Belle unwrapped her arms from around herself and wiped the tears from her face.

“I-I’m fine,” she tried to say, but her voice betrayed her, breaking into as many pieces as that teacup Gold so treasured.

“I’m sorry.” The woman hesitated, then tentatively placed a gloved hand on Belle’s shoulder. “Is there anything I can do? I don’t mean to intrude, but...well, I was on the way to the hospital, but you looked…well, is there anything I can do?”

She tried to draw herself up, tried to fight back the tears, tried to remind herself of all the reasons she needed to keep walking to the hospital, to that gray cell…but she couldn’t. Despite herself, she found herself turning into this kind woman’s offered comfort.

“Please…please, just…” But her voice trailed off because she didn’t even know what to ask for. Or rather, she knew what she wanted, what she needed, but it wasn’t something this Good Samaritan could—or would—get for her.

“Here, sit down.” The woman led her to a nearby bench and sat her down, keeping a comforting hand on her back as she let her cry. It was nothing like the comfort Gold would have proffered; he would have enveloped her in his arms and murmured soothing words to her and hushed her and then, if that did not work, would have tentatively kissed her tears away until she forgot why she was sad and buried her hands in his hair to kiss him back. This woman’s comfort was soft and distant, not fierce and all-encompassing, gentle and patient, not desperate and hopeful, but it was comforting all the same, and Belle cried harder to receive it.

“I’m sorry,” she finally murmured after long moments. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the woman said, and somehow Belle had known that was what she would say. “Sometimes you just need to cry. Is there…is something wrong?”

“No,” Belle whispered. She took a deep breath and straightened, slowly drawing out Gold’s crimson handkerchief to clean her eyes and cheeks. Finally, feeling a bit more presentable, she met her comforter’s eyes and smiled. “I’m Belle.”

“Yes,” the woman smiled, “and I’m Mary Margaret.”

Belle’s eyes widened as she took another look at this woman who had patted her shoulder as she wept. “Mary Margaret? David’s Mary Margaret?” When the woman blanched, Belle flinched and dropped her eyes. “I’m sorry—was I not supposed to say that? It’s just…just that he talked about you all the time—well, not _all_ the time, not really, just that he told me he loved you—and I _knew_ you would come back to him if he apologized.”

Mary Margaret looked away, so sad and dejected that Belle raised her hand awkwardly, ready to try and return the favor of patting her on the shoulder should she begin to cry.

“Please, don’t be mad,” Belle pleaded helplessly, inept at this, so unequipped to handle anyone who wasn’t Gold. His mysteries were compelling and easy, or at least pleasant, to unravel, but everyone else was a puzzle to read, a headache waiting to happen in their ambiguities. “I didn’t mean to offend you, or—or get David in trouble. I worked with him at the Pet Shelter, you know, for a while.”

“It’s all right.” Mary Margaret shook her head, as if to rid herself of the tears she had almost shed, before she turned back to Belle. “I’ve heard about you too. Not from David, but…you know.”

“Yes.” Belle’s smile was almost bitter—she hadn’t realized she had a bitter smile, but it felt twisted and cynical on her lips. “Of course.”

“Is…” Mary Margaret narrowed her eyes, clearly deliberating on what she should say, and then asked, “Is everything all right? I mean…I can call Emma for you if something…if you were hurt or—”

“No, it’s not that.” Belle felt that habitual surge of quick protectiveness rise within her, which surprised her. After seeing Gold’s harsh and serrated edges in the shop, she would have thought she would no longer feel the urge to defend him to everyone she met. And perhaps it _was_ a bit muted, slightly weaker than it had been before, but it was still there. For some reason, that reassured her, eased some tension inside herself she hadn’t even realized existed.

“I was leaving him,” she said calmly, not reacting to Mary Margaret’s surprise, ineptly concealed. “I thought it was the only way to protect him—but I think I was really trying to protect myself. Sometimes…sometimes it hurts, loving him, and it was easier to think I could leave it all behind—keep the love without having to worry about the bad moments and the…” She chuckled weakly, waved the damp handkerchief. “The tears. But I don’t think it’s going to work. I…I don’t want to leave him. I think…I think being apart from him is going to be worse than all the bad moments _with_ him could ever be!”

Mary Margaret stared at her, her expression so stricken that Belle felt a moment of panic, terrified she had skipped time again. But she was still holding the handkerchief, her cheeks were still wet, she held no blade or thorn or shard of glass, and twilight still clung to the edges of the horizon.

Before she could ask what was wrong, Mary Margaret let out a heavy sigh and twitched her lips into the approximation of a smile. “I guess you’re right,” she said, the cheer in her voice patently false, the awed discovery tingeing her tone very real. “Being apart really doesn’t solve anything.”

There was sudden decisiveness, resolve that hadn’t been there before, pouring steel into Mary Margaret’s slender frame, but for once, Belle’s curiosity wasn’t enough to keep her impatience, her growing sense of foreboding, from growing.

_Gold needs me_ , she thought, such an obvious truth that she wondered how she had not seen it before. Even if he weren’t her delusion, he was, for all his power and control and precision, alone and lost and so very, very afraid. He needed her to be there. He had told her he needed her to be brave for the both of them, and she had promised that she would. But here she was, running away, and he had surely discovered that she was gone by now.

And the last words they had exchanged had been so cruel, so harsh, so final.

“I-I’m sorry!” Belle stood so quickly that Mary Margaret started in surprise. “Thank you—thank you for helping me, but I have to go! I’m sorry!”

“It’s all right,” Mary Margaret managed, a confused frown making her features look almost pixie-ish. “Good luck?”

Belle was surprised when she smiled, an outpouring of emotion propelled by the urgency and fear and hope singing in her veins, fizzing up through her body to make her almost lightheaded. “Thank you,” she said again. “Tell David hi for me?”

And she was gone, no time to look back, no time to say more. Maybe later she could look her up and tell her just how much she appreciated her kindness, how grateful she was that Mary Margaret had stopped her before she could make the worst mistake of her life, but for now, she could think only of Gold. It wasn’t cowardly to walk away, but sometimes it was bravest of all to stay in the first place. So she would go back.

_If he’ll take me back_.

The thought sobered her, because he might not. He might be too distracted with his schemes, or too hurt by her abandonment, or too angry that she had left him after promising she would stay with him.

He might not take her back…but she thought he would. Hoped he would.

When she burst into the pawnshop with the discordant clattering of the bell above her head, she felt her heart skip a nervous beat at the sight of the dim interior, the lights shut off. But the door hadn’t been locked, and there was light coming from the backroom. Agile fairies twirled in the pit of her stomach as she hesitantly crossed the room; her fingers shook as she reached out to pull the curtain aside; her breath caught in her throat when she saw Gold standing near the counter, his back to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice dull, with none of its usual subtle flair or eloquent hypnotism, “but the shop’s closed—”

He stared at her as if he had never seen her before. _No_ , she corrected herself, _he stares as if he thinks I am a dream come to haunt him_. And knowing he was her hallucination, as often as she was afraid that he would not be there the next time she looked for him, she knew the feeling well. So she stepped forward to meet him in the center of the floor, his hand fumbling for his cane.

“I’m sorry, Gold,” she said, the words spilling from her lips in a hasty, disjointed flow. “I thought that…that if I turned myself in, I could make sure that I didn’t hurt you. But I couldn’t do it. I—”

“You came back,” he interrupted, hollow and shaky and brittle. He squeezed her arm, making sure she was real, simultaneously giving her proof that _he_ was.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, her heart hurting. “I wanted to protect you. But…maybe we can protect each other instead?”

“Yes,” he blurted, and he gathered her into his arms, and this was exactly the feeling she had missed when Mary Margaret had set her hand on her back so comfortingly. Gold wrapped her up in himself, enfolding her so completely, obliterating everything else, replacing it all with his scent and his feel and his heartbeat until she thought she might actually melt right into him, a second skin that held him together and gave him courage and strength and security.

“Yes, I’ll protect you,” he breathed in her ear. Then he pulled back and cupped the back of her head in his palm and kissed her, all desperation and disbelief and devotion so thick and overwhelming that she could have drowned in it if it weren’t so necessary for her continued well-being.

“Gold,” she murmured when he pulled away to let her gasp for breath, clinging to him.

He shuddered at the sound of her saying his name, then blinked and very obviously pulled himself together. “Hey, there will be time for that later.” He paused, then shook himself again and offered her a timid smile. “But for now, there’s somewhere I have to be.”

“It’s important?” she asked, trying very hard not to feel disappointed at the sight of that distracted look back in his eyes.

“Oh, yes,” he breathed, so fervent and wistful that Belle blinked, taken aback.

“Can I go with you?” she asked, all but begged.

His hesitation was slight, minute, but she saw it and felt a hollow void open inside herself. She looked away, her tears all used up and wiped away, numbness and perhaps a bit of disenchantment taking their place.

“All right.” Gold placed his long and agile fingers on her chin and tilted her head up until she met his somber gaze. “You can come. But we must hurry. All the pieces are in place, Belle, and if I’m too late…if this doesn’t work…” Panic wrapped in bleakness flashed like a nightmare over his features before he could hide away the emotion and school his expression.

_He needs me_ , she reminded herself. So she slipped her hand into his and offered him a ghost of a smile. “Then let’s hurry.”

“Yes.” He straightened, his lips quirking into a happy, satisfied, almost smug grin, his eyes already seeing past her to whatever his goal was. He turned and released her hand briefly to open a small drawer and retrieve the key she had helped him find what felt like days ago.

“Where are we going?” she asked when he tucked the key into his pocket.

His smile was triumphant, almost a sneer except that it possessed too much gleeful anticipation. “The library, dearest. The dragon’s lair.”

 ---

Her face was blunt, nothing subtle about it at all, like melted steel that had held all the potential in the world and yet had turned brittle and hollow and hard, all sharp edges and stark emotion and direct threats so ineptly hidden behind contrived concern and heightened, magnified, distorted by the blatant beauty that leapt out to slap everyone who caught sight of it. As soon as Belle saw her face, turning away from a hole in the wall, framed by books cowering away from her presence, she was assailed by a terrible, disorienting sensation of falling, something swooping in through her and rattling around in her mind until all that was left to her was the memory of another hole and a closed door and that smile peering inside at her, ready to devour her alive should she fail to cower and hide and submit.

Terror, as stark and blunt and unconcealed as the mayor’s—and now she knew how she had known the mayor, didn’t she, knew why the mere sound of her voice had sent cold lead to pool at her joints, congealing around her bones until she hadn’t been able to move, had shrunk back against August’s steady, solid presence—as blatant as the mayor’s features, all of it slapping outward to strike directly at the most vulnerable parts of her. The door swung closed behind Belle, latched with a snap, and a tiny whimper was wrung from somewhere deep in the back of her throat.

Gold’s hand brushed her back, briefly, and then he was striding ahead of her, prowling ahead, looking like nothing so much as a dragon stalking its coiled prey, brushing aside the mayor’s voice—as quick and damaging as a snapping whip—as if it were nothing more than wind.

“Your Majesty,” he said in a sibilant hiss, the casualness of it all as much a weapon as the hard, merciless glare in his eyes that looked almost black in the shadowed library, and there was something wrong about what he had called the mayor, but Belle couldn’t hold onto it, not when the door was shut behind her and the hole in the wall led deep down underground where there’d be no way out and only a stark smile that held nothing within in it to equate it with a smile, nothing more than a baring of teeth, to look forward to, to visit her, to break the monotony of mere existence. She wanted to cling to Gold, wanted to hold onto him and make him hold her pieces together so that she didn’t shatter and spiral outward into oblivion. But he was prowling back and forth before the mayor, heedless of her danger, careless of her threat, single-minded in his quest as he grabbed a chair and spun it in one swift, smooth motion to face the mayor.

“Sit,” he commanded so sharply that Belle flinched back, expecting to see the piercing syllable embedded in the mayor’s flesh, standing upright like a thrown dagger; she was surprised that it was invisible, that it did not show blood-red against the pale complexion of blunt, beautiful features. The smile that played along the corners of his mouth was beyond menacing, beyond threatening; it was danger and damage and destruction and death a breath away from being delivered, and it was completely unlike any smile he’d ever given her, smiles of happiness and lunches and kisses and soothed nightmares and woken dazes and mended hearts. And for an instant, Belle was almost as terrified of him as she was of the mayor backing away from Gold, shaking her head, holding her hand up to protect herself from—

“ _Please!_ ”

And the mayor, as easily as that—a word and a smile and a chair—was defeated, crumpling and falling, distaste and revulsion and hatred and inexplicable anguish twisting large eyes and wide lips and molded cheekbones into a mask of helplessness. She fell into the chair as if punched in the stomach, folding in on herself, and she was speaking, pouring out words at Gold’s feet like offerings, like weapons, like hopes, but he waded through them as if they did not exist and stood before her and _smiled_.

“Hush,” he commanded, and then, so purposely, so intently, so slowly, savoring it, tasting it as he spoke it: “ _Please_.”

Silence fell. Terrible, horrifying silence, and Belle had never liked this mayor, could only remember cold gray and immovable doors and terrifying helplessness when she looked at her, but she felt pity, like a tiny, almost unnoticed worm, slither through the pit of her stomach.

She felt her spine hit the wall before she even realized that she’d been moving, backing away from the scene in front of her and the man she had thought she knew but now realized was nothing more than one face, like a single facet of a multi-faceted diamond that twisted and turned and gleamed and reflected so that you could never tell who or what or when you were looking at and were deceived into thinking there _was_ only one face.

“Just a moment more, Belle,” Gold murmured, his voice once more soft. But he did not look at her, did not turn to see her, only stepped forward to stand at the very edge of the hole in the wall. Belle whimpered again and held her hand out toward him, wanting to catch him, to yank him away before he could fall and be locked away forever, but she could not move from her place, not when the mayor was now staring at her, and, lacking subtlety, her sudden spark of inspiration was plain to see. Only, Gold didn’t see it; he was too busy sending clever hands over mechanisms laced in shadows and making something groan and creak like the dragon he had told her awaited them within the library she had not thought to be afraid of.

Belle stared, wide-eyed, at the mayor’s eyes. _Regina_ , she remembered hearing, and the name suited her. Stark and blunt, lacking subtlety, possessing beauty supplanted by purpose and ambition, and all of it staring right back at her, full of plans and desperation, and nothing was more dangerous than a desperate parent backed into a corner.

She tried to look away, tried to take a step toward Gold, tried to flee to his safety, but she couldn’t move, hypnotized, the rabbit lured to a stop in the hawk’s shadow. And the longer she stared at Regina’s black—oh so black, so very black that Belle wondered how she could ever have thought Gold’s eyes black when his had that golden gleam to lighten them—the more she stared into those eyes, the less she remembered of why she was here. Sanity was something she only loosely held onto on the best of days, and this day was far from the best, and she was not a warrior, was not brave, was only a lost and scared mental patient struggling oh so hard to stay free, and so her sanity was released.

She looked at the mayor—

Blinked.

—tried so hard to hold on, tried to call for Gold’s help, but it was a pitiful attempt, easily covered over by the screech of something below, a hot flare like fire roaring up from the hole to envelop them in smoke and sparks and ash—

Breathed.

—pressed her palms to the wall behind her so hard that she thought there would be tiny, fingerprinted bruises on the tips of each of her fingers, until she thought the wall would crack and shatter beneath her tension, and Regina was scooting the chair toward her, stark and severe features all lined up in cold menace, and she could _not_ forget, could _not_ skip time, not now, not when Gold was distracted and the mayor was right in front of her, looming, reaching out with hands up toward her throat, easily batting away Belle’s fluttering, useless hands—

“Off with her head!”

Time had stopped. She only knew that because when it came racing back forward to reclaim its uncontested place as insidious ruler of all things in existence, it sucked its way around her with an irritated snarl to take up the reigns once more.

She had stopped breathing. She only knew that because when someone tall and quick and blurry burst through the doors to tear Regina’s hands from her throat, she began to cough and sputter and gasp for air in that desperate way one did only when they were seconds away from blacking out.

Insanity was fencing her in behind concrete barriers and hopeless futures. She only knew that because she couldn’t think, couldn’t reason, could only watch and breathe in ragged breaths and sink to the floor, leaning back against the wall, and wrap her arms around her legs.

Gold turned from the hungry hole in the wall, lightning crackling around him, the eye of a storm that would lap out to destroy whoever he instructed. He was standing over her in seconds, fierce and whole and hackles bristling, fangs bared as he leapt to protect her, a dark and ancient force so powerful it could not even fathom being defeated.

“What are _you_ doing here?” he demanded, and she almost gasped in relief to hear his voice. It was something real, something cohesive she could hold onto in order to keep from losing herself. There were too many sharp and dangerous things around when even _please_ could be a blade, too many weapons for her to risk losing time and waking to find herself holding something lethal and threatening.

“Came to help,” the blurry man snapped back, hauling a trembling Regina up into the chair and tying her hands to the chair. “She’s double-crossed me for the last time—I want to make sure she gets what’s coming to her. And a good thing I came too, what with her sudden desire to turn nearby beauties into silent bargaining chips.”

“Yes.” Gold frowned, but it was a soft frown, more gentle than the smile he’d targeted at the mayor, as he knelt at Belle’s side. He reached out long, calloused fingers, and she knew there was nothing to be afraid of—she _knew_ that—but fear was unhinged and wild within her and sparked like a taut rope snapping in the wind, so she flinched away and shut her eyes because the hole was gaping wide behind him— _can’t he see it there, ready to pounce and devour him_?

When she opened her eyes again, slowly and cautiously, his hands were at his sides and he was looking at the man who had ripped away suffocation and menace. “Finally arrived in time for something, Hatter.”

“The name is Jefferson.” Irritation threaded thick and red through his words, almost as thick and red as the scar showing on his neck before he readjusted his cravat and hid it away behind silk and knots. “And what exactly are we doing here?”

“Making a withdrawal,” Gold murmured. He met her eyes, and she was caught, drawn to him, and she knew she knew him, but the mayor’s hard glare had sent out fog to encase her in confused trembling so she couldn’t make her mind give up the memories regarding this man before her. She only knew that his name was Gold and that when he tentatively touched her she did not mind and that he was soft and careful as he helped her stand and brushed a strand of hair from her face.

“I’ll fix it, Belle,” he promised her, and then he was turning and suddenly, instead of softness and tentativeness and promise, he was all lines and angles and purpose. “Well, Jefferson, thank you once more for your services. I assure you, the Queen will pay for what’s been done.”

“I want what she took from me!” Jefferson hissed, and Belle shrank back, grateful for the lifeline Gold offered her in his hand resting so temporarily on her elbow.

“And so you will have it.” A promise as durable and unyielding as time itself, and Gold threw it over his shoulder as casually as if it meant nothing. He moved to the counter, opened a drawer, and withdrew a roll of duct tape, all with quick and economical movements, and Belle fiercely envied his assurance, his knowledge of the world and everything within it.

He savagely ripped off a piece of tape and moved to the mayor, which was a mistake, because Belle’s eyes followed him and now she was once more looking at the mayor, and something insidious and nefarious, something trying to erase all that she was, moved outward to gag Belle as surely as Gold was gagging Regina.

Black eyes and red lips and pale skin and…and a door, a hole, locks and pills and straitjackets and…and dungeons and chains and… _no, that’s not right_. It had been orderlies and…and those same black eyes, those same lips now covered by silver tape, and Belle trembled and huddled in on herself—

Blinked.

—her nails bit into her palms as she fought to retain her hold on herself. Words swirled over her head, so many of them, like flags and banners and signs, all of them relaying something and sending out messages, warring and battling and fighting and spilling out blood that bled transparent rather than crimson red—

Breathed.

—the world had gone sideways, and still there were voices, but they were overpowered by the scream of a beast beneath her, maybe her very insanity given voice, as a door clicked shut behind running steps, and then there was a caress and a whisper and a promise that didn’t mean anything anymore because she couldn’t remember and steps accented by a cadenced tap and she was alone, without even a name to call her own, lost and spiraling away and all she could hold onto was one word: gold.

But gold didn’t mean anything; it was only an element, something to be treasured and valued and hoarded, wrapped up in the coils of a dragon, only there were no dragons anymore, so instead of being wrapped up, it was spun out like thread, brilliant and glistening with forgotten things and too many tears to ever shed them all. Gold that whispered and hugged her and smiled and shook when he touched her and made quips that turned darkness into laughter and—no, that couldn’t be right, because gold didn’t smile and kisses couldn’t be spent.

But there _was_ gold, she knew it. She knew it was important, knew she needed to grab hold of it and never let go. And how odd, she had never thought herself to be greedy or possessive, and yet she was. She wanted to grab hold of the gold that shone like the sun in her cracked and broken mind, covetousness and greediness waking like livewires inside her, demanding that she take hold of every smile, every glitter, every word, every treasure, and bind it all up so that no one could ever steal it from her. It was hers and hers alone, and she would fight any dragon, any witch, anything at all to protect what was hers.

Silly thoughts. So funny she couldn’t help but smile slightly to herself. She might have tried to relay them to the books leaning in all around her, but her train of thought was broken by the feel of a hand on hers. She found the hand, followed it up a dark-clad arm, past a narrow shoulder and into a face staring back at her, his face a canvas filled to the brim with unknowable thoughts and emotions and memories.

“Gold,” she murmured, and she blushed because now he would know how greedy she was. “I need gold.”

“I’m here,” he said.

She frowned— _that doesn’t make sense; he’s not smiling, not a metal_ —but then she saw it in the glint of his teeth, his open mouth, a spark of gold, a brilliant sheen against the shadows all around her, as if the black he wore was a cover through which the gold inside him poured out, rays of sunlight nudging past doors and drapes and shutters. And in his arm, cradled there like a baby— _it would be a son_ , she was somehow sure—was a golden egg.

“You’re gold?” she asked, and couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when he nodded disjointedly.

“Yes. We need to go, all right, come on, dearest.”

He put his arm around her—security and heat and tiny fizzling memories that sparked and faded in her mind too quickly for her to catch hold of them—and moved her toward a door. She wasn’t quite certain why he wanted to move that direction—it wasn’t like doors ever did anything; certainly they never opened—but she was halted by the sound of a woman’s cry from behind her. A woman also calling for gold.

“Wait, she—” She tried to turn back toward the hole in the wall. It might have frightened her at one point, but right now she was already trapped in the hole in her mind, and so a physical hole couldn’t do any further harm.

“Didn’t you want me to save Henry?” the man asked her, the shaded nuances of his voice almost hypnotizing. “The young boy?”

“Yes?” she answered, and the world was certainly upside down, because it emerged like a question.

“Then we need to leave her. She’ll figure out her role soon enough—she’s not quite as dense as she wants everyone to believe.”

He was so confident, so assured, that she couldn’t help but believe him, and anyway, he was still moving toward the door and she couldn’t lose him, not when he was the gold she craved. They passed a dark woman crackling with rage and desperation and resentment. She had silver across her mouth and over her hands, but that was nothing to be concerned about, not when they were only bandages eased across open wounds, curtailing a grimmer fate of bleeding out poison into open air.

“Come along.” The man pulled her forward, and she couldn’t help but gape when the door opened for him and they stumbled out into open air. She—she wished she could remember her name, but all she could remember was gold and all she could hear were bells—she took in deep breaths of the crisp air and smelled sea and wind and frost and freedom, an intoxicating blend that left her dizzy and breathless.

“We must hurry,” the man said. “I only have a limited time to finish this before we can leave this town forever.”

She followed him to a car, long and black; it suited him. He reached out to open the side door for her, but he held a cane in one hand and the golden egg in the other. Something moved across his face, illuminated by the moon and the stars above them, before he took the egg and offered it to her.

“Here,” he whispered.

She didn’t know his name, didn’t know why she had been in the library, didn’t know where they were going or why she wasn’t in her cell anymore—but she knew that he was trusting her with something much more than the gold of the egg. She could read the struggle on his face, could see his intense worry as she reached out steady hands to take the egg and cradle it to herself as he had done.

“I’ll be very careful,” she promised him. “I won’t drop it this time.”

A ghost of a smile passed across his thin lips as he opened the door for her, and she slid in carefully, cautiously, gentle and ginger with the egg in her arms. It felt more durable than a teacup, more likely to survive mishandling, but sometimes appearances were deceiving and teacup or egg or heart, she didn’t want to let him down.

As he crossed to get in the driver’s side, she found herself studying the egg. It was extravagant and grand, covered with carvings etched and upraised along its sides, but there was a catch in the middle, a tiny keyhole. She wondered if he had the key or if that was what they needed to get.

“This is made of gold,” she observed finally after he had begun driving, leaving the library behind. She didn’t like the silence that had fallen to cover them up, didn’t like that he was tense and nervous, his eyes darting all about, his mouth set into a straight line. She wanted him to look at her, wanted him to smile, just so she could see if there really was gold leaking out of him, wanted him to speak again so she could continue to hoard it all away, somewhere deep inside herself where no one else would be able to find it.

“Perhaps,” he said softly, “but it’s what’s inside that matters.”

A smile spread across her lips, turning the night-cloaked forest around them light, because he was right. She was certain that it was what was inside the man beside her that mattered more than anything. He was dark on the outside and gold inside, and much as it might be a character flaw, she could not help the greediness so very alive and burning within her.

“Yes,” she whispered, and he glanced sideways at her, a tiny puzzled crease appearing in his brow when he saw her smile.

“Ah, Belle,” he breathed, turning away from whatever he saw in her, his hands going white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

“Is that…is that my name?” She stared at him, then ducked her head, suddenly embarrassed. She caressed the coolness of the egg in her hands, studying its whorls and fascinations as avidly as she wanted to study the man beside her.

“It is,” he said simply, and yet the tightness of his voice bespoke the price behind the simple answer.

“I…I don’t remember anything,” she admitted. “Do I…do I know you?”

He swallowed, then let out a mirthless laugh. His smile didn’t show gold; instead, it revealed pieces of his heart, shattered and bruised and broken, jagged and edged, sticking up through the chinks in his armor. “Apparently not. But…you will.”

She wanted to smile at that, wanted to sigh in relief at that assured answer, but the torn and ragged edges fraying the ends of his voice, like rust creeping over gold, supplanting its sheen, made her stare at him worriedly instead. “Isn’t…isn’t that a good thing?”

The slight shake of his head sent pain stabbing inward to her own heart, and she might not understand why, but she certainly understood the sudden clenching of her stomach at his next words: “Not many would think so, but…I’ll let you decide.”

“You will?” Her shock that he could open the door or that he would trust the golden egg to her or that he knew her name, none of it amounted to anything next to the dazed wonder and awe she felt now. Others opened and closed doors for her; others drugged her or left her alone for days and centuries on end; others led her where she needed to go or told her what to do. She could not remember a time, could not _imagine_ a time, when she got to make her own decisions. It seemed even more impossible and fantastical than gold smiling and kissing and laughing.

“Of course,” he said, no hesitation marring the positive statement. “Your fate is your own.”

“I…” She swallowed and had to look away, lean her head against the cool window to calm the blazing rush of her chaotic, disordered thoughts. “I don’t think they’ve ever let me do that before.”

“You did it anyway.” And he reached out with a hand to brush a strand of her hair behind her shoulder, a touch she barely felt, barely there at all, save that it sent fireworks of discovery and longing radiating through her entire body, his strange alchemy replacing the blood in her veins with startled hope and reawakened—and she was sure it was _re_ awakened, something she’d felt before coming back to life within her—desire and warm affection.

But his hand was already back on the steering wheel, and for all that she wanted to keep him all to herself, wanted to reach out and brush away the troubled lines around his mouth, he was still a stranger and she was still lost and unsure. So she turned her head and watched the scenery pass her by outside the window—so many things she watched from windows, but this time she didn’t care, not when the more interesting thing, the more valuable thing, was inside with her.

She thought she dozed off because she was startled when a tender touch stroked her cheek and she opened her eyes to find the car parked at the end of a road, living forest all around them, dawn beginning to brush the edges of the leaves with haloed light. Taking in a quick breath, she sat up straight and checked to make certain the egg was still safe. Her smile was automatic when she found it still protected in the circle of her arms.

“I didn’t drop it,” she assured him, offering it to him.

His smile was the sad one, the one that hinted at all his chipped edges and empty nights and bleak thoughts. “Thank you.”

When he climbed out of the car, she eagerly followed him, anxious not to lose him. He was _hers_ , gold and darkness, desire and hurt, forgotten memories and unknown futures, and she couldn’t let him go. He set the egg down on the hood of the car and pulled from his pocket a key. Watching him, she put her hands in her own pockets, curious to find whether she carried any keys as well, but all she found was a wrinkled and worn handkerchief, glinting dull red in the early morning light. It didn’t seem as useful as the tiny key the man was using to open the egg, but it felt important and her hand closed tightly over it as if by habit.

As soon as he unlocked the egg, his long fingers pulled it open down the middle. She couldn’t help but gasp when he pulled out a tiny glass bottle that shone and stirred purple, tiny colored sparks adorning the amethyst glow that floated ethereally as if it would drift into the ether should he pull off the cap.

“What is that?” she asked, curious and entranced and nervous all at once.

“Magic,” he said, his voice almost detached, strangely hungry.

Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “I-I didn’t know we believed in magic.”

He chuckled and tucked the bottle away in a decisive movement so quick it was almost sleight-of-hand. “There is none in this world, but this will remedy that.”

“Why?” she asked curiously.

He had already turned, already started forward down a path no one but him could see, yet he halted as if struck at her question. “Because,” he said, his face half-turned from her, his profile limned in silver by the newborn sunrise, “I lost something. Something infinitely precious. And this is the only way I know to get it back. To get _everything_ back.” And suddenly, so suddenly it felt like a lightning burst across her vision, he was looking at her, determination and resolve and bottled impatience clashing with the same greediness she herself felt.

_Maybe…maybe this greed isn’t wrong after all_ , she thought, and felt a band of tension ease from around her chest at this redeeming, comforting possibility.

“All right,” she said softly. Taking tiny steps to keep her balance on the uneven ground, she moved to stand beside him. Her hands twitched, almost reaching out to take his arm before she stopped them. “What do we have to do?”

In an instant, he had relaxed, which made her belatedly realize that he had been rigid and bristling, ready to defend himself and the purple potion he carried. And he was astonished and disbelieving and awed, a mixture so familiar it sent a thrill straight through her heart, stirring forgotten thoughts and lost memories. Softness and sadness and something that looked a lot like love melted and transformed his features into an entirely new face, and he stroked a careful thumb over her cheek as if she hypnotized him. “Oh, Belle,” he whispered, his accent thick with shading and nuances she would have understood except that her stomach had disappeared and her heart was beating so rapidly and she felt light and weightless and dizzy. “There’s no one quite like you.”

“Probably because everyone else has their memories,” she teased with a wry grin, simultaneously astounded at her own boldness and ease around him and struck by a sense of loss, as if she were missing something dreadfully important to him.

“You might be surprised,” he retorted dryly. But he was distracted again, then, turning and looking back to the path drawing him ever onward. “Come on, it’s not that far from here.”

His strides were quick and hurried, sure and fixed, never pausing for any stone or twist or crack in the ground. He kept his eyes fixed forward, something ahead of them calling him on with a siren call he had been able to resist for only so long and now could not help but succumb to. Or so she thought, but then, her thoughts went round and round in circles until she was surprised she could walk in a straight line herself. It was easier to look down at her own feet, at the leaves she walked over and the dirt she ground beneath her shoes and the hem of her blue coat as it played along her legs with every step, easier to follow behind and try not to think too much. Thinking too much about anything, trying to keep herself focused on one subject, only made her head hurt, and since she was pretty sure she remembered her mind _breaking_ , she didn’t want to risk it happening again. She didn’t remember anything, didn’t know who she was, but at least she was out of the cell and she was with a man who looked at her as if he would break down any and every door for her no matter what they were made of or how many locks they had, and that was enough for now.

“Almost there,” he called over his shoulder, and she bit her lip, wondering what he had to do to bring magic back. Wondering if he was really talking about magic or if it was a term for something she was supposed to know. Hadn’t he also mentioned dragons? Or had that been her? She couldn’t remember, and it was too much work to chase the thought down.

A sudden gust of wind swept past and through her, carrying with it ice and fire all at once, leaving purple and orange highlights behind when she blinked. She sucked in a sharp breath, smelled the scent of something at once incredibly foreign and familiar, reached out a hand as if to find something that was no longer there—

She blinked.

She breathed.

And Belle woke up.

Memories flooded in with all the force of a violent, torrential storm, soaking her in a deluge of moments made up of two different worlds. Memories of monsters and magic and myths made real. Memories of insanity and imprisonment and immense confusion as reality had unmade itself around her. Memories of two women, one strong and trying so hard to be brave and protected and loved by a man who thought he was a beast, the other lost and unsure and mad…and protected and loved by a man who thought he was a monster.

Rumplestiltskin.

He was there, still shining gold in her mind, outlined by the stark memory of what seemed, to her, to have been only yesterday, of an indoor picnic by the fireside, of soft touches and daring kisses and quiet confessions as they luxuriated in being alone, and then a chipped cup pulled from its safe hiding place and insanity blinding her to Rumplestiltskin—but only temporarily because even in madness, she had still known he was hers, that she belonged with him.

And there he was, striding forward ahead of her, forging toward something, running from what he knew was coming. _Soon,_ he’d told her, had promised that she would know him.

And she did. She knew him. It seemed like just moments ago he had shown her their cup, seemed like weeks ago since she had been attacked by the Queen and stared at him without recognition, and yet she missed him with a ferocity that took her aback. He was running, and she wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want to chase him; she wanted him to turn around and look at her, wanted to know why he was so afraid.

“Wait,” she tried to say, her voice weak, torn between the Belle who was a princess and the Belle who was a lunatic.

“No, no, we’re very close,” he said, never pausing, never slowing.

But she had both sets of memories now, and she knew how to summon the deal-maker to her side.

“Rumplestiltskin.” The word was golden on her tongue, sweet and heavy and luxurious, laden with power not wholly magical. “Wait.”

He was frozen for an instant. And then he was moving, spinning to face her, eyes wide and tremulous, fear and hope etched in equal lines, side by side, across his beloved face. “Belle?” he whispered. He shuddered in a deep breath, peered so closely down into her eyes as she stumbled nearer to him. “ _Belle?_ ”

“Rumplestiltskin,” she repeated. He was so uncertain, and still scared, and she didn’t know why because she had loved him in both worlds, in both incarnations, even cursed and afraid and lost, but then, he had always thought himself unworthy, completely incapable of earning love or loving in return no matter how often they both proved that belief wrong. So she smiled, and she said, “I decided—it’s a good thing. To know you. A very good thing.”

“Belle,” and her name on his lips was a prayer, a plea, an exhalation of soul-deep relief, and he opened his arms, and she stepped forward, and she was wholly encased in his love and affection and dark, burning devotion, and she reciprocated, wrapping her arms as tightly around him as she could, defined and profiled and highlighted by his body against hers, encasing him in her love and fondness and brilliant, burning commitment.

“I love you,” she whispered, because she had been about to tell him when he’d shown her their cup, had felt the words already lined up in her mouth, ready to be released, and she had been ready to say them again when she’d come back to him instead of locking herself away, had opened her mouth to speak them before he’d recalled himself to his task. But now she could say them, and so she did.

As always, a shudder ran through him, as if he could not help but physically react to those words directed to him. Belle wanted, suddenly and completely, to say them so often, to convince him of them so thoroughly, that one day he would no longer have to be surprised at them, that one day he would know without even being told that they were true.

“Yes, and I love you,” he murmured, and she couldn’t help but laugh with the pure joy fanning outward to encompass her in jubilance and delight and even relief. She lifted her head from his shoulder, tilted back, ready to kiss him, but his hand was on her cheek, spanning the side of her head, and regret and hope warred within his eyes. “But there’s…still something I have to do.”

And yet he didn’t move. Only watched her. Dark, deep, almost unfathomable wells of grief and desperation inside him, terrible patience outlining his form as he stood still in her embrace.

And Belle understood.

“Your son,” she realized. “He’s what you lost—you can bring him back?”

“He’s here,” he admitted, so quietly she caught the words only because she could feel them vibrating through her, because she knew him and knew that only two things could make him look so lost and so hopeful and so vulnerable all at once. “I have to find him.”

“Of course you do,” she asserted firmly. She stepped backward, then, let her arms fall from his shoulders, because this was something he needed to do—something he had crossed worlds and times and lives and centuries to make right—and she would never stand between him and his son.

Gratitude, vast and quick, flashed across his expression, and he trailed his hand down her arm to thread his fingers through hers. They walked, side by side, to a well, situated where it overlooked the town that had once been a world.

“This well flows from a spring that brings back what once was lost to you,” Rumplestiltskin explained. His tone would have been identical to the times in the Dark Castle when he’d answered her curious questions except for the tiny ragged edge that made it flutter slightly. She squeezed his hand tighter and stepped to the well, looked down into darkness so black she couldn’t even see the liquid reflection of water.

Rumplestiltskin breathed, in and out, and then he reached into his pocket and drew out the bottle of magic. “It’s True Love,” he told her. “I bottled it.”

“It can break any curse,” she replied, the familiar, oft-thought words filled with old pain buried beneath layers of happiness.

“It’s the most powerful magic of all,” Rumplestiltskin affirmed. His hand shook when he held the bottle over the well, and Belle reached out to place hers over his, steadying it. She let out a breath when he opened his hand and let the glowing magic fall down into depths she couldn’t perceive.

His hand found hers again, giving comfort, seeking it in turn, and she did her best to give it to him. A gasp of surprise and fear was torn from her when purple smoke billowed up and out of the well, vehement and violent and so thick Belle was almost afraid to breathe. She instinctively stumbled back a pace, and Rumplestiltskin moved with her without once tearing his gaze from the magic he had unleashed.

With the force of the smoke’s movement fluttering his hair back from his face, his eyes locked on the future he had foreseen and ensured, Belle thought he almost looked like magic itself personified, given shape and form and set upon the earth for some purpose she couldn’t divine. He seemed, in the light of this enchantment, to be as ageless as the sky, as old as the mountains, yet contradictorily as young as the babbling, teasing brooks. He seemed more a force of the universe than a person, and for just an instant, Belle loosened her grip on his hand, staring up at him in awe and nervousness.

But then he turned to look down at her, and tears glittered like gold in honey-brown eyes, and his mouth quirked up in a lopsided smile that showed the mysteries beneath the facades, and the moment passed and he was Rumplestiltskin once more, influenced and touched by Mr. Gold.

“I’ll find him, Belle,” he promised—promised her, promised himself, promised the absent Bae. “I’m so close.”

“We’ll find him,” she corrected softly, and he pulled her close, let her rest her head on his shoulder as the sun rose in a sky painted purple with magic.

They watched the smoke spread and merge and dissipate, watched until the world looked once more as it always had. If Belle looked ahead, she saw Storybrooke, firmly mired in this world—magic-less no more—but if she looked behind, over her shoulder, she could have sworn they were standing in the Enchanted Forest, in their old world, filled to overflowing with magic of all kinds.

None as intoxicating or amazing as the man holding her close to his side, smelling of lightning and books and fire.

“Will I be able to kiss you?” she asked quietly, not lifting her head from his shoulder. She wanted to be able to kiss him, wanted to be able to stay close to him without worrying about stealing away his magic and immortality and curse, but she could not begrudge him this, not when it was Bae on the line.

“My darling Belle…” There was a trace of laughter in his voice, echoes of the impish Rumplestiltskin laughing at her over tea.

“I don’t want to take away your magic,” she said, defending herself, looking up at him with a frown. “Not when you just went through so much to bring it—”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he interrupted, half-smiling and half-crying, and then he pulled her close and dipped his head and kissed her.

Tomorrow, she would have questions for him. Tomorrow, they would probably have to face the town’s awakened residents and their accusations and blame. Tomorrow, there would be things to learn about each other and mistakes to be made and apologies to speak and more kisses to exchange. Tomorrow they would make more memories.

Because memories were precious things, and they made them who they were, but even without them, she knew she would always find her way back to him. He was Rumplestiltskin and she was Belle, and no matter what world or magic touched them, she was supremely confident that they belonged together.

He was holding her close with a possessiveness she matched, only to loosen his grip on her and caress her face with hesitant tentativeness, and no matter how many tomorrows they held, no matter what all their tomorrows contained, Belle would never get tired of feeling his loving dichotomy, his two sides made one in his love for her.

Magic was here, yes, but it was nowhere near as powerful as the love she felt for him. True Love, after all, was the most powerful magic of all, and so she knew—knew as surely as she knew the touch of his lips and the feel of his hands and the beat of his heart—that they would come out all right because love was the one thing they had.

It was true.

It was magic.

It was forever.

 

The End


End file.
